Chapter Two: More Shipwreck then Ship

"In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins."

-Ulysses Grant-

...

At their weakest moment, when it seemed that enemy had an impossible to dislodge presence in the skies and seas, the Kanmusu arrived.

It had taken the awe-inspiring failures and losses endured before the Japanese politicians started listening to the radical ideas of their scientists.

They had taken notes from the Abyssals. They shrunk down the hull and armaments of warships into a more compact size.

Obviously they needed someone who could actually lift and use this dense equipment.

They designed a ritual that could call back the ethereal spirits of downed warships. They tweaked the amount of supplies that would allow the spirits to take a corporeal form. They tried out what music should be played. What oaths should be invoked. Which people to handle the ceremony to resurrect them into human form.

Finally Japan managed to bring back the navy from their greatest time.

The people of the world, whose faith in humanity's survival had scraped the proverbial bottom, begged the Japanese for their technologies.

The Japanese leaders told their allies they couldn't let the technologies to fall into unscrupulous hands. But they could offer protection to the rest of the world if they paid exorbitant fees to fund their endeavours.

The Asian nations ran streams of convoys to the Japanese islands, paying a modern tithe for their help.

But it was the Germans and Italians that co-operated the most. They were even allowed to play host to a few of these Kanmusu, or ship girls. That was just how much they were sending to Japan.

And like that, the world reached an agreeable stalemate with their ferocious and relentless enemy.

But their enemy could learn as well.

Rear Admiral Xian Chengli skidded to a halt in front of the canteen.

He was not here for leisure, he was still very much on duty, but because the caller had specified this very noticeable spot for a quick rendezvous.

"Tell me what's happening right now!"

The question was directed to the head scientist of the "Naval Personnel Adjustment and Deployment Department". Even after a good little bit of espionage had taken the secrets to summoning the souls of ships, there was still a lot of research to be done and the information they had and would stand to gain needed to be organised and studied.

Although he had met the man on several occasions, due to them being in the same department and facilities, both had been too busy directing their own teams of people around. They didn't seem to know each other very well.

"The resources set aside for the summoning have disappeared!"

"What?!"

The details of the summoning ritual was still obscure to the Chinese and the Russians. They had had to do their best with the information they had "appropriated" and start summoning Naval Personnel right away.

So truck- and train-loads of resources -transporting that many resources by sea was just asking the enemy to rip you a new one- had arrived haphazardly and as quickly as the schedule allowed.

When they were confident that there were enough resources to at least get half a dozen if not more Naval Personnel, the timetable had been set. Monks, a military band, and whoever was deemed critical had all been prepared for this.

And now a mishap! His superiors would not be happy. Especially as he had been tasked with summoning a sizeable flotilla. Those resources for so many ships, where could they have gone?

...

Please don't scrap me

Those were the first words she thought as she was manoeuvred into port.

It had been a tiring journey. A stressful one. She was so scared that after all the trouble that she gave to her navy, that they might feel she wasn't worth it.

She had believed through various points of her journey that she would be

scrapped. Maybe she should have been

Because her navy, her navy she so troubled had fought tooth and nail with the other powerful and respectable navies of the world just to move her to port.

What was wrong with her?

...

Xian stormed into the "summoning room".

"What the hell were you bastards thinking?" He practically screamed into the face of the chastised port workers.

"W-W-w-w-we were told to wait for a little bit before moving these resources into those circles."

"Yeah but-"the second of the three workers had plucked up his courage from the first, "A little bit turned into a long time and we thought-"

"You thought fucking what!" Xian Chengli, rear Admiral of the reorganised North Home fleet of the People's Liberation Army Navy and head of the program that would procure hope for the nation, had snapped, "You just couldn't wait a few more hours when we've been planning this for fucking buddha's gelatinous flying fuck knows how long!"

"-t-t-t-that if we moved them a little earlier, no h-h-harm done right?" the

worker stuttered, all previous thoroughly misplaced courage gone.

"OHOHO! You speak about harm? Where is it bastard?! Where did it all go then?!Where did all of those tons of ammo crates, bauxite and Confucius left tit knows we needed and scraped from around the country!?"

The workers looked at each other, confirming if they should continue, and perhaps hoping to garner courage from the presence of their comrades in peril.

Yeah the latter didn't happen.

"They just disappeared! And it just happened all at once when we had moved all of the boxes-"

...

The sheer amount ofresourcesthat had gone into her, her navy hadn't given up, the person who bought her, who had first suggested that his nation could

adopt her languishing hull, hadn't given up.

But it hurt. To know what trouble she was causing. Her owner had to file for bankruptcy, her navy was slandered, the navy and owner willing to give her a new lease of life.

She was so grateful and this was how she had repaid them.

...

"-then the pool in the centre of the room just hissed and disappeared!"

Now that Xian had railed and taken his anger out on these poor hapless workers, he had vented all his stress, nervousness and anger on these fools.

And now he was spent. All that was left now, now that he had made sure they would never make the same mistake again.

He turned and stormed from the room.

Outside he managed to finally calm down. Looking out on the water, so blue and sparkling, with the sun blazing with all of its glory and the warm air, he finally recollected his thoughts.

Okay it wasn't that much of a nightmare.

Okay, so one mistake had been made, but this was their first time. A mishap could have happened any time. It was just unfortunate that it had to be now. Well, a whole load of resources were missing in action.

But that was okay, there was probably some truckload of resources coming in soon anyway. He just wished he had a secretary,someone to supervise those truly incompetent.

...

She watched as her journey turned into anightmarefor her adoptees. At many points of her journey she was afraid that they would give into their demands, their harsh demands to be abandoned, to be decommissioned, to be scrapped.

She had been caught in a force ten gale, had been forced adrift and the efforts and even the sacrifice of a sailor, of another nation had paid that ultimate price.

Other navies were angry, they said that she would disturb the tranquillity that had allowed them to prosper. She had to wait then, in the Suez canal, had sympathised and bemoaned it when her navy and owner were told quite simply that she was "dead" with no on-board power source. She wasn't allowed

through. She- They would have to take the long way around.

Dead.

But they didn't give up.

And eventually she had made it.

And her new navy... and country had been grateful.

Grateful? But they were. They seemed to turn a tragedy into a miracle, they saw her burdensome journey as a triumph of their determination. Their boundless optimism. Their hope.

For thefirsttime since the journey had hit its first snag, she was happy.

...

"Excuse me?"

Xian who had managed to collect himself from his- was this a breakdown?- breakdown. He turned to this new voice.

The woman the voiced belonged to seemed to be some office worker or government official. Maybe support staff?

"Do you need something? What can I do for you?"

"I do need something. Do you know where I can find the Admi-"

"Admiral Chengli! Rear Admiral Chengli!"

An officer, one Xian recognised. The officer had been crippled in her last mission and had served in auxiliary capacities since.

"Sir." She saluted with her prosthetic arm. "The carrier-"

...

That she would grow to become the pride of the navy! That they should have all rights given up on her, had done everything to save her, and now they seemed to celebrate as if she had carried a similar burden.

Her owner would spend many years paying off the debt accrued from the setbacks.

Her joy sullied by her owner's fate, she humbly accepted the task given to her.

To be China's first carrier.

...

"-Liaoning. I-It's gone."

"What? That ship had a whole battle group! That can't be true!"

"It is."

The two officers looked at her. Xian was still in denial. The support officer, Lin Jingfei, was crying.

...

But her joy had been robbed. Shortly after being commissioned as the Liaoning, with a family of other ships all encouraging her, she had taken her flagship role and sailed out of port, bearing the pride of the Chinese fleet.

But the Abyssals had robbed her.

...

The carrier Liaoning, not even an hour dead, looked up to see the heartbreaking sight of people she owed a debt she could scarcely repay, were crying for her.

She had failed. But they still cared.