Rule 22. Samuel B. Roberts is not allowed to take training torpedoes from the armory without permission.

Samuel B. Roberts crept towards her destination, slinking past bored MPs and groggy fairies. They didn't see her, the stealth lessons from the submarines paying off. Hiding behind a bush right next to the entrance to the armory, she waited for someone to come by and open the door. She didn't have to wait long, Maury and Patterson exiting the building, chatting lightly and 32 torpedoes in hand. Just as they swung the door closed, Sammy B. dove for the open door, going into a somersault as she hit the floor.

The diminutive destroyer escort grinned as she stood up from her crouch. Stacked inside the armor was ordnance of all kinds, properly sized for shipgirls. Rockets, bombs, shells from .30 caliber to 16" super-heavy, and her ultimate prize: torpedoes. Slowly, carefully, she grabbed one and placed it inside the small wooden case she had brought for this exact purpose. When it didn't explode, she took the next one more quickly, and within minutes she had thirteen torpedoes tucked into the small case.

Getting out was a cinch. All she had to do was unlatch one of the windows and jump down. Tucking the case onto her waist, she took off for one of the torpedo training grounds. Oh, this was going to be so much fun!

~o~

"A-Are you sure we should be doing this, Sammy?"

The destroyer William D. Porter had ample reason to sound nervous. The poor girl was widely considered not only the unluckiest shipgirl in the US Navy, but in the entire world. She had knocked out more battleships than most Abyssals. And don't even get anyone started on her torpedo launching. It was to the point where she was flat-out barred from being deployed.

This meant that the fact that she was standing on the water of a torpedo training range was making her incredibly nervous.

"It's fine, it's fine," Sammy B. answered, laughing. "What's the worst that could happen? These are training torpedoes, they have paint warheads."

Well, that was reassuring. Somewhat.

"Now, we're gonna start off easy," Sammy B. said, pointing to a nearby target shaped like an Abyssal RE-class battleship. "Only 500 yards. Easy enough. Give it a try."

It was easy. She just needed to point at it and launch, and if they were working, they'd run straight and hit the target. Willy D. took a deep breath to calm herself, aimed, and fi-

Shipgirl uniform shoes are the source of their propulsion, and dig into the water a little for proper motive traction. What this meant was that it was nigh impossible for a shipgirl to lose her footing in the water. Emphasis on "nigh", because today William D. Porter proved that it was quite possible.

Torpedoes flew everywhere. Two dove out of their tubes aimed right at Sammy B., both hitting her square on the forehead and not only covering her entire front side in paint, but also knocking her ass over teakettle. Five were scattered over the water and went everywhere, spraying paint all over the torpedo training range. One hit the water, ran straight, and juuuust missed the target.

And the last hit the water, accelerated for the target - and then looped around.

"Aw-" was all the destroyer got out before the torpedo hit her foot, bruising her toe and spraying paint all over her legs.

For a minute, the range was quiet as the two shipgirls regained her bearings. Finally, Sammy B. sat up and looked over the range and themselves: namely, the paint covering everything. She sighed. "Well, I know what we're doing for the next few days."

"What you're doing," Nicholas corrected from behind her, causing the destroyer escort to nearly jump out of her skin. "The admiral is a lot more sympathetic to Willy D. than you."

And with that, Nicholas grabbed Sammy B. by the arm, the smaller shipgirl not resisting. "Also," the destroyer said as she turned to leave. "Nice shot."

Puzzled, William D. Porter looked down the range, where one of the 10,000 yard targets was being pulled in. And it was splattered in paint.