It just had to be rats didn't it? Goddamn fucking rats fed with some kind of mind controlling serum and the ability to disrupt electronics rendering all electronic warfare somewhat… Totally useless. With the advanced warships having been pushed back due to technical difficulties the question still remained. Who was going to secure to Musashi and how?
Let us find out…
"Tell me Aceline, what did the principal ask us to do?" Captain Ivory Goodman asked as her radio operator looked back onto the message on her clipboard.
"She has requested us to set a course for the Musashi's now confirmed location and provide assistance in efforts to secure the Musashi. We are allowed to use fire power if deemed necessary but under the condition that collateral damages do not happen to the vessel or its crew. That is all." Aceline replied looking up.
Ivory bit her tongue, all this time she'd been trying to avoid this. Getting tangled into some crisis that has nothing to do with her, her crew, and her ship. Just a while ago, she'd had enough with some weird family of rodents getting fished onto her boat before causing about 15 percent of her total crew to go mutiny. Aggressive behaviour in other words. Luckily it was put under control when she accidentally found the way to stop the infected from going all berserk and perhaps eventually harming themselves or other crew.
A BB gun, yes, an airsoft gun as everyone would know it as. In shear desperation, when a group of infected crewmembers tried to take over the bridge, she took out the M4 from underneath the steering wheel and shot them all. It worked. They dropped like bowling pins when those BBs hit them.
So they lay there, completely motionless with their eyes still open. Orders were given to splash them with water to see if they were OK. The buckets were filled with sea water and each person was individually doused with the liquid causing them to snap back to normal and… the same kind of rat crawling out of their pockets.
All five of her crewmembers were then confined to their cabins which were now all padlocked. The rats were captured thanks to the ship's fatty cat, Garfield and placed into containment bins before tied to a weight and tossed overboard. Call it animal cruelty but that was how things were done on this ship. Ivory hated rats, and she would do anything to get rid of them.
"So was it the Japanese Principal who gave us the orders or did our principal give the orders?" Ivory asked Aceline once more.
"She requested Admiral Spruance to send the help. Admiral Spruance was the person who gave us the orders and also the rest." Aceline replied.
The bridge was then silence for a brief moment of time as Ivory consolidated herself of what the hell had just happened in the passing week. Everything started just fine with them leaving port, formed up the wedge formation with her two other friends to commanding destroyers and set about a course for Iwo Jima training grounds. Mid way, an oil leak was discovered in all three ships…odd and they were forced to stop and make emergency repairs. But that fuel just kept gushing out of the tanks! After 16 hours of mad patching up, countless crew sent into the waves with snorkels and armed with screws, drills and sheets of metal. They fixed the leak.
Bingo on fuel because they didn't leaving port with a full tank because they were on a short training exercise, a supply ship was summoned up and it sufficiently topped the tanks off. Resuming their cruise, word of the Harekaze engaging the Sarushima, a ton of ships gone missing from the Yokosuka Japanese Girl's high school: Blue Mermaids. Their instructors radioed in the order for them to turn around and head home. So they did, now just eight hours from receiving the latest order, Ivory gets to order to turn her ship towards the massive engagement some nautical miles north and 'help out'.
Why couldn't have they just sent some other taskforce? It just had to her puny little destroyer taskforce didn't it? It just had to be the entire student council staff whom gets sent into the fray. Was everyone else incompetent enough to be given the same mission? Debatably yes because in this entire western bloc of United States Navy Blue Mermaids personnel, this was the best anyone could really muster up in all this time in order to respond to the crisis.
"Captain?" The helmsman, Olivia Murdoch asked looking a bit worried seeing Ivory had been in the same pose for an entire five minutes, giving little to no regard whatever was happening around her.
"Signal from the Robert A. Owens and Herbert J. Thomas!" The mast shouted through the ship phone. "Confirm...Orders….From…High…School…Set…Course…For…Assigned…Location…Yes… No?"
All eyes once again fused onto Ivory as she decided her answer.
"Orders confirmed. Set a course rudder right twenty degrees. Make course zero-five-zero from current course. Speed: Full ahead." She ordered and everyone on the bridge quickly got away with their jobs. The crow's nest didn't want to get stoned again so they to hurriedly flashed the orders to the Robert A. Owens and Herbert J. Thomas.
"Rudder twenty degrees…" Murdoch said grabbing the wheel and spinning up twenty degrees. "Turning now, passing zero-one five-zero." She said eyeing the compass.
The secretary voluntarily moved over to the speed control before dialing into full. "Speed set to full." She spoke.
"Speed increasing!" Murdoch shouted seconds later. "Passing thirty knots!"
Ivory remained expressionless. "Torpedo officer. Tell your girls to load up ten of our best fish from the holds and set depth at 14 meters for tubes in launcher one. Depth at 17 meters for launcher two. Torpedo speed 66 knots, range 10 kilometers." She ordered Hilary 'Torps' Pen.
"So were going to break their backs? Heh… fine by me…" Hilary grinned crossing her arms and leaning back on the wall.
"Artillery, stand by for further orders. For now settle with practice ammunition but advised me when it would be feasible to fire at secondary armaments of the Musashi when we close in on range." Ivory also added.
The artillery officer nodded.
"Double A. I want everything that we have fully loaded and ready to unleash hail... and I want hail you get me?" Ivory then said.
"You got it Cap'n!" The Texan replied.
The exact same orders were then relayed to the rest of the ships with an understatement: 'Ordered by council Prez'.
With the sun setting in the background and the sky radiating with orange, the small taskforce of Destroyers corrected their headings towards the scene of the ongoing crisis. The torpedo tubes glimmering in with the final rays of sunlight as torpedoes were loaded into them, girls shouting on the decks of all three ships. The anti-aircraft staff wearing their blue helmets and life vests busy with boxes of forty millimeter Bofors ammunition, twenty millimeter Orelikons and the favorite of them all. Point fifty caliber ammunition, doing their job and loaded all those guns.
Three long black lines of exhaust filled the air as the three Gearing class destroyers made way at flank speed towards their objective. The target: The Yokosuka Girl's highschool: Musashi.
One and a half days later…
[Queue music, U-571: End credits #1]
"Three mast spotted in the horizon! Range 9 kilometers out due west!" The crow's nest reported to the bridge on the Harekaze. Mashiro and Misaki and the rest of the bridge crew trained their eyes onto the course said and spotted the three masts belonging to the three Destroyers sailing a black stream of smoke behind them towards their position.
"They're here…." Mashiro thought as the ships came into full view.
Indeed they were.
"Contact! 9 kilometers out! Dead in the water Harekaze!" The crows reported to the bridge as the hulk of the Harekaze came into view. There she was, sitting in the water waiting for the three new arrivals to meet her.
"Bring us about and bleed the speed…" Ivory ordered as the secretary once again voluntarily hurried over to the speed dials and rolled in for half speed.
Orders had been given beforehand about half an hour earlier for everyone to man their battle stations. Reasons for being was that Ivory didn't want any surprises when she reached the meeting point. There was no telling if the Musashi would change her course suddenly and come sailing straight towards them. Another more personal reason was that Ivory was one of those people whom liked to show off and she liked doing that, a lot.
As more and more details of the three destroyer taskforce came into view, the crew of the Harekaze felt both slightly intimidated, envious, and a bit impressed as they saw the presented situation aboard all three Gearing destroyers.
The intimidation came from the triple hundred twenty seven millimeter guns shining in the sun as well as the numerous anti air craft armaments manned by the destroyer's marines complement or some other parts of the staff whom had simply took on a blue helmet and life vest and had their hands on one of those guns. They didn't show even a sign of stress of fear in hooking themselves up to such weapons
Envy drew from the shear amount of equipment they saw aboard the destroyer. Numerous radar equipment, that boxy thingy looking fire control module, and for a particular torpedo officer. Actual torpedoes and also the ten glimmering torpedo tubes armed, in the sun and ready to fire at a moment's notice.
After a short while of sailing towards them, the three Gearings individually split their formation before they encircled the Harekaze. One last thing they showed off was the flag that flew from their stern. A simple navy blue background and a golden roundel showcasing an armored dragon breathing fire flanked by a pair of anchors. In bold gold description atop the roundel read: "A.G.Y.N.H.S.C." which stood for a mouthful: 'American Girl's Yokosuka Naval Highschool Student Council'
Mashiro blinked for a few moments when she saw the flag hanging from the stern. "No… it can't be" She murmured as she saw the flags on each destroyer for the first time. Being perhaps the most knowledgeable person onboard the Harekaze in terms of knowing things about the Blue Mermaids and also its schools worldwide. It would be completely out of character for Munetani to not know the next door neighbor to her own school.
The A.G.Y.N.H. and more respectively, its student council. Its president, Captain Ivory Goodman was a name that would be at least an honorable mention at least twice every year in the Blue Mermaids official magazine. Whether be it shining sun and calm seas to thunderous weather and hellish seas. She's an absolute devil to be an adversary. Your troubles would rise as you put into regards the Vice President and PR manager respectively commanding the Robert A. Owens and Herbert J. Thomas.
Munetani's prediction was later confirmed as all three captains emerged from the bridge of the vessels all at the same time, in perfect timing before they began to eye the Harekaze. A black Motorola walky-talky in their hands and all looking dead serious. Once again showing off.
"This ship is laughable…" Vice president Lilith Locke commented over the channel
"No kidding Lock Lock." Public relations manager Acadia Des Moines replied. "We've got advantages in guns by far superior overall DPM. Looks like they're dry on torps to! Damn what a shame, I say they're K. already if they're facing us"
Being the less negative person in the trio, Ivory said little but reminded the two that they were working with this vessel and they should treat it with respect and at least give some sorts of dignity to it even though it was highly see-able that the Harekaze was indeed inferior to their Gearings. "Try not to snatch all the glory ok guys?" She added to her small lecture.
After an exchange of flag signals and signal lamps flashing. A RHIB boat was unloaded off of the USS Gearing and it gathered the three other captains including Misaki before returning back to the Gearing where Ivory greeted them all.
"Wow! You guys sure have a very cool ship!" Misaki applauded as she was guided towards the Officer's mess where the briefing would take place.
"Such a lack of wording this kid possesses..." Lilith thought
"How the heck did she become a captain?..." Acadia also thought.
"Thank you.. I'm pretty sure your vessel is also competent enough. Anyhow without further a due" Ivory said putting on a pretty convincing fake smile. It was fake indeed, what happened in the last 36 hours had hit her pretty bad.
Personally, she was supposed to spend the weekend with her little sister, driving her along the coast so that the young artist can make some of her beautiful sketches. She was quite hesitant when she had to pick up that satellite phone and inform her little sister the news. The crew also didn't receive it quite well as Misaki would've found them shooting glares at her as she passed them.
It started with her crew complaining after she informed them that their long weekend liberty pass to Tokyo had been cancelled thanks to this crisis. Someone was booked for a flight back to Los Angeles because her grandmother had fallen pretty ill. Guess she wasn't going to be on that plane but instead see it fly overhead. This 'son of a gun' crisis had affected the crew in all sorts of ways, some were normally upset but there were also the ones who were keeping their inner rages within themselves. But if tapped into, they may or may not have the will to simply solve the situation by sinking the target over 'capturing it'.
"Shall we get on with what we're going to be doing?" Ivory said to Misaki who nodded enthusiastically.
"What the hell just happened?" Ivory thought.