Autumn, 2028

Naval Station Newport was abuzz with activity.

In addition to its critical strategic location, from which shipgirls protected southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and parts of Long Island. It was a major center of R&D for the shipgirls.

It was in Newport where the US Navy perfected its repair formula for its shipgirls, where Graf Spee became the first non-American shipgirl to receive late-war American antiaircraft artillery, and more breakthroughs.

But today they would be trying something never before attempted. Today was the day that they would try and summon a ship that had never even left the drawing board.

Arkansas felt the sense of excitement and apprehension that permeated the base as she inspected her rig. She and her comrades would be assisting in a new possible chapter in the war with the Abyssals, but at the same time, they wanted so many shipgirls around just in case what they got wasn't friendly.

Her rig was a large assembly of steel, shaped sort of like a fishhook if viewed from above. On it were the turrets for her battery of heavy guns, a funnel, and the masses of AA guns that had been attached to nearly every available surface. The steel had been painted to match her winter dress, a mix of dark blues and grays that served to break up her outline and make it that much harder to get an accurate shot at her. She aligned herself and lifted the steel structure up to her mid back. It attached easily, and she set about checking her turret traverse as she settled her hairband (which would have been the top of her mast had she still been a steel ship) onto her head. Though at the probable ranges today, such a high observation point probably wouldn't come into play.

All six of her turrets responded to her commands with ease, and the twelve 12''/50 Caliber Mk 8 guns elevated and depressed with no issues.

Those were another of the advancements that Newport had managed. Fitting the 12'' guns from the Alaska class large cruisers into the turrets of the old Wyoming class had been a feat alright. The guns were lighter, and with the ability to use the very effective Mk 18 AP shells, they were welcomed by the chronically under gunned Wyoming sisters.

"Hey! We're going to be late!" Arkansas jumped slightly and turned to face the two Nevada sisters.

The two battleships had been in the Atlantic for a while now, where their lower speed wasn't as much of a handicap as it was in the high-speed battles in the Pacific. Both of them were dressed nearly identically, though the white blouse and dark blue skirt that all the Standard line wore in one way or another had been replaced with their own winter camouflage of grays, blues, and whites. Even so, it was easy to tell Nevada's sharper features and chest length blonde hair from Oklahoma's softer face and short dark brown hair. Their rigs were also slightly different, with Oklahoma retaining the mostly exposed tripod mast. But both of them packed dozens of light and medium AA guns in addition to their main battery. Seeing them made Arkansas feel a little better, 20 14''/45 caliber guns and some newly reinforced armor on her side did tend to do that.

"I'm ready now. Lead the way."

The summoning lab was housed in a specially constructed building right on Coddington Cove. Today the roof panels had been lifted up and the sliding door that opened onto the bay was open, filling the building with natural light and fresh air.

In the center was a pool, one of the central aspects of a summoning ritual had been found to be something akin to a drydock. Many of the shipgirls that had arrived early on had emerged from things as small as tide pools, though no one knew exactly why.

Stacked neatly around the pool were piles of steel, brass, aluminum, timber, shells of all shapes and sizes, drums of fuel oil, and boxes of coal. The critical resources that a ship of the shipgirls era might require.

Scores of people were already seated on the bleachers that surrounded the perimeter of the building, conspicuously most of them were seated behind the line of waiting shipgirls. Lots of them Arkansas recognized from the development teams, along with a smattering of officers from the Navy and Marines.

Closest to the pool were the other shipgirls. The biggest was Washington, then West Virginia, then the heavy cruisers Louisville, Vincennes, Graf Spee (on a visit from Germany), and two squads of destroyers. Out in the bay, Arkansas could just make out a few submarines lurking right below the surface.

"We might not get any licks in if this goes bad," Nevada quipped as the trio joined the force of waiting shipgirls.

Just a few moments after they arrived, the event began.

Patriotic music started playing over the speakers, and the R&D team started doing something with a stapled together booklet. Then the piled resources started to slide over to the pool. Every minute seemed to take hours as everyone in the room watched the methodical procession of steel, wood, large shells, and oil drums as they vanished into the water.

Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

The next moment a shipgirl appeared from the surface of the pool.

Arkansas's first impression of the new girl was that she looked an awful lot like Graf, with only two very large main turrets, but that's where the similarities ended.

The newly appeared shipgirl was dressed in a white shirt, a navy blue skirt, and had a bright red neckerchief around her neck. She had large bright blue eyes and a sort of long face, with a shining head of nearly white, downy hair. Her rig carried two large triple turrets mounted away from her on arms, four smaller ones on their own arms below the main guns, and a distinctively American cage mast that rose above her head.

She skated across the water, stepped up and out of the pool, and saluted Commodore Pierce, who was the head of the project. The stone-faced commodore returned the salute and then extended his hand to the new girl.

"Hello. It's good to have you with us."

With a confused expression, the new girl took Pierce's hand and shook it. "Thank you, sir. I have a question though."

"What is it?"

"What's my name?"

"You don't have a name?" Pierce asked, glancing over at the other members of the project. They looked just as confused and surprised as Pierce must have felt.

"No sir," She replied as she looked around the building.

"Well then, we'll have to fix that. What are you though? I don't recall seeing-"

"I'm a battleship, sir!"

"Alright. You are… Rhode Island."

The newly named battleship's face lit up at that, "Ohh! Thank you!"

Pierce gestured to the assembled shipgirls, "I'll have some questions for you later, but until then I'll let you get acquainted with the other girls."

Rhode Island practically skipped over to the other shipgirls, her face bearing an expression of sheer elation. The regular humans started to depart and converse amongst themselves, realizing that they'd have to wait to meet the new shipgirl.

Now that they were on the same level, Arkansas noticed something else about Rhode Island.

She was small.

Arkansas's eyes were level with Rhode Island's forehead, and she had been the smallest battleship in the group.

Washington, who towered over nearly everyone present in the first place, was the first to speak.

"Hello there! I'm Washington."

Rhode Island, with the top of her head barely being level with the fast battleship's chest, looked up at the shipgirl who towered over her. "Hello! You're very tall."

As Washington laughed at that comment, Graf got close enough to ask, "What do you have?" The heavy cruiser's eyes were wide and locked on the two massive turrets on Rhode Island's rig.

"These? Six sixteen inch, fifty caliber rifles. Twelve six-inch guns in four triple turrets, and two torpedo tubes."

"Wow…" The so-called pocket battleship stepped back, clearly thinking about something.

"Anyway, I got some stuff set up for you. You're probably hungry aren't you?" Washington asked.

"Now that you mention it, I guess I am."

As the short Rhode Island followed Washington towards the door, Oklahoma commented, "She's taking it really well."

"Yeah," Nevada replied, "I guess it's probably since she was never built." Arkansas nodded in agreement. The transformation from an unaware steel warship to a living thing with actual thoughts and feelings was disorienting at best and took a while to recover from. There were many video compilations of new shipgirls having issues with such simple things as not tripping over their brand-new feet, let alone skipping around.

"What was she anyway?" West Virginia asked. "I don't remember anything like her ever even being talked about, let alone designed."

"No matter what she is, I think we're being left behind." Arkansas said as she started towards the door, "Come on, we can find out more about her over lunch."

Notes:

So, while I was looking around Shipscribe I found some concepts for 1920s era 'small battleships'. Rhode Island here is based on the adorable little 530' long E-3 design.

Is she overgunned? Possibly, but I don't think that its anything that MSSGM can't resolve.

Plus, well, 'SB-1'. We must have the dakka.

I picked Newport, RI since the Navy had a torpedo testing range in the area back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Rhode Island is about 4' 11'', Arkansas is about 5' 2'', Nevada and Okie are 5' 6'', WeVee is 5' 9'', Graf is 5' 8'', and Washington is 6' 8''. Iowa and Yamato are both above 7 feet, and have learned to stoop to get through doors. Rhode Island could probably walk between a Tillman's legs without having to bend over at all.

If I were better at writing physical comedy, I'd write more things where new shipgirls figure out what to do with their hands and feet all the wiggly little pen- FINGERS AND TOES on them.

Graf Spee wants some better guns than the SK C/28s she has now. She doth covet Rhode Island's guns.

I also like the idea of shipgirls wearing camouflage, and I don't care how effective it was. It looks cool.

Originally Posted on SpaceBattles on January 30th, 2018