When Jersey woke up, she was lying flat on a cool metal slab. It wasn't quite what she'd call cold, but…it was certainly noticeably chilly against her bare skin. That was the second thing her groggy mind noticed as it lazily shook itself out of mothballs: she was completely bare-ass naked.
"What?" Jersey's voice rang quiet and horse in her ears, and her mouth was dry and cottony. She tried to rub…something, slag probably…from her eyes, but only succeeded in smacking herself in the face. Her arms were as strong as ever, but her hands felt like lead blocks, and she didn't have any feeling past her elbows.
But the parts of her body she could feel were…all tingly inside. She could feel her crew polishing a couple of new Bofors mounts, which Jersey was more than happy to have. But her attention was captured by the strange sensation in her bunkers freshly enlarged to meet the baseline of her class. She felt full and empty at the same time. She felt the weight of thousands of tons of fuel oil, but she could also feel it slosh around with every breath.
She was also hungry as fuck, but as an Iowa-class battleship, that was pretty much a constant for her. A warship of her vastness always felt at least a little peck-ish. Her tummy groaned a rumble that echoed off the sterile tile walls, and the battleship started to pick herself up off the chilly steel table.
But she stopped before her shoulder-blades lost contact. She wasn't alone, not really. A naval engineering faerie stood on her breast, its little feet making divots in her pale flesh as it struggled to stay upright. Jersey knew it was a naval engineer because of the itty-bitty glasses suspended in front of its even tinier eyes, and the utterly adorable little clipboard it held in one stubby hand.
"Hey," Jersey nodded at the little thing. It waved a stumpy hand in reply. "He take good care of me?"
The battleship glanced over at her other breast, where a dozen or so Marines lay entrenched in a ball of Kevlars, M16s, and Woodland BDUs with the sleeves rolled up in the way only Marines could quite pull off. "Guys?"
A miniature Lieutenant whipped his little head over, his Kevlar continuing the motion for a split-second longer and nearly whipping him in the cheek with its chin-strap. After a moment to collect himself, he reported in the affirmative.
"See," Jersey braced her elbows against the table and jacked herself up to a more comfortable supine position. She was careful to move slowly though, so neither of the parties assembled on her quarterdeck went toppling off. "Didn't have a thing to worry about."
The Marines huffed and idly fixed bayonets.
"So," Jersey glanced at the engineer. "How long was I out?"
The faerie – who Jersey was certain had to be a loan from Akashi – answered with a few imperceptible words.
"Two weeks?" Jersey's jaw dropped. It felt like just heartbeats ago the hipless-skirted wonder had been talking her through the process and putting in drydock. Refitting is a hull of a drug. "Shit! Oh, fuck me in the shaft galleries, I got shit to do."
The faeries stared silently up at her.
"That means you guys need to go."
The engineer just hopped off, sliding down Jersey's belly like it was a toned gaijin waterslide and bouncing between her abdominal muscles until it finally landed on the table by her hip.
The Marines, however, decided it would be cooler and more tactical to rappel off Jersey's flank. Which would have been fine – Jersey herself admitted it looked pretty damn cool – if they hadn't needed to set their lines first. Lacking any convenient place on her breast to tie off their ropes, the marines had just dug several itty-bitty grappling hooks into her tender flesh.
"What the fuck guys?" Jersey scowled at the marines and gingerly picked the hooks out of her skin. She sighed at their shameless explanation. "I guess I can accept that."
The battleship rolled her eyes and swung her long legs off the table. Two weeks was a long time to spend on her back, and she was careful to brace her arms against the table as she gently shifted her weight to her feet. Her muscles quivered for a moment, then found their strength.
Her first step was a little timid. Her second less so. And by the third, she was moving just like she always had. She didn't bother trying to cover herself as she went looking for her uniform, she doubted anyone would intrude. And if they did, they'd be Japanese, which made it her patriotic duty to give them an unadulterated view at how immensely superior American shipbuilding was in every conceivable aspect.
But then the battleship caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The change to her figure wasn't huge, other than her upper-works being a bit less disproportionately small next to her hips. But her body wasn't what the battleship was staring at. She was staring at her hair.
It was the same waterfall of strawberry-tinged blond that fell almost to the cleft of her aft it had been before. Only she now had two little tufts sticking up from the crown of her head. Little copper-gold tufts that looked eerily like the furry simulacrums of a cat's ears.
"POI!" Jersey roared and furiously tried to brush her tufts down, but to no avail. The moment her hands lost contact the tufts would spring back like she hadn't touched them in the first place. "POI! Get your scrawny ass in her Right fucking now!"
"Poi?" the slim destroyer stuck her little head around a divider and smiled. Her little hair-tuft-puppy-ear things flapped with the motion, as full of happiness as they were devoid of shame. "Like…you look good, Jersey!"
"Good?" Jersey bit her lip and huffed. "I look like a fucking cat-girl with…" she trailed off as her eyes traveled lower on her own reflection, "With…a fucking killer rack, but that's not the goddamn point right now!"
Yudachi giggled. "Neko-Chan Jersey, Nyaaa~" she pawed the air, earning a glare from Jersey that could melt steel.
"I hate everything," said the battleship.
"It's…like…not all a loss, though, poi!" Yudachi stepped fully into Jersey's half of the refitting bay and did a little twirl. Her hair had picked up the same copper-blond highlights at the tips that Jersey's had, and her figure was subtly – though noticeably – curvier.
"Wait…" Jersey glanced from her own reflected tufts to Yudachi's new hair color. "You…don't suppose Akashi got her notes crossed?"
Yudachi shrugged. "I like…I don't mind." She did another twirl and giggled as her hair splayed out around her. "I like this!"
"Yeah…" Jersey sighed and glanced at her own reflection. "Guess…I like it too, Poi."
—|—|—
"Hey, Vestal. You got a minute?" Gale wrapped her knuckles against the cranky old repair ship's door. It seemed like every time she walked by, the number of taped-up memes promising horrific retribution if Vestal was forced to leave her nice comfy office because someone got drunk increased. Gale was reasonably certain it had something to do with Vestal's age, but bitching about drunks was a common thread among all the medical personnel she knew.
There was a long, ragged breath from the other side of the door before Vestal's crone-ish voice rattled out. "Yeah,'s open."
Gale opened the door and was hit square in the face by a solid mass of thick coal smoke. Vestal might not approve of drinking, but she certainly loved that pipe of hers. "Ah…" she waved a pocket of clean air in front of her and settled into a chair below the ash layer. "You, uh…you okay?"
Vestal shrugged and planted her pipe in the corner of her mouth. By the way she moved, she seemed to forget it was there the moment her hands left the battered wooden chamber. "What can I do for ya?"
"Well, I was…" Gale trailed off as she noticed what the repair ship had been reading. An anatomy book, but not a high-level graduate textbook. This was a book for – maybe – high-schoolers, complete with inexplicably-ethnically-diverse and painfully nineties lingo on the cover. "Vestal?"
"Huh?" The repair ship puffed idly on her pipe.
"What are you reading?"
"'m learning," said Vestal.
"But…" Gale glanced from the book to the ancient auxiliary and back again. "But you're a repair ship."
"Exactly," said Vestal. "I repair ships. Ask me to put out a fire or plug a torn torpedo bulge and I can do it in my sleep. But ask me to…to…" She trailed off. "See, I don't even know enough about biology to give you an example of something I don't know how to do."
The repair ship chewed angrily on her pipe. "You know…Jersey called me the other day. Needed help getting…uh…" she leaned in to make sure she wasn't overheard, "Sand outta her shaft galleries."
Gale blinked. "'should I know what that means?"
"Well…" Vestal's blush was so bright it was visible through her gritty age-weathered cheeks. "She…twixt her shafts…"
"Oh my god!" Gale winced at the thought. "Oh! that's…"
"Yeah," said Vestal. "I just laughed 'cause…'cause it was funny—"
Gale shrugged in agreement.
"And because as long as I was laughing," said Vestal, "I didn't have to admit I couldn't do a single thing to help her." She sighed and drummed her fingers against her book. "So now I'm changing that."
Gale didn't know why, but she felt the overwhelming compulsion to hug Vestal. So, she did just that, and ruffled the auxiliary's graying hair for good measure.
Vestal smiled that raggedy-old-cat smile of hers. "Thanks. Hey," She peeked her bushy eyebrows. "Did you know the…" she paused to flip open her book and skim a few lines, "My-to-con-dri-a is the powerhouse of the cell?"
Gale chuckled. "Yeah, I think I did, Vestal."
"That's so fascinating," said Vestal. "We've only got the one propulsion plant, but you…" she trailed off. "Anyways, why'd you want to talk to me?"
"Well…" Gale squirmed in her seat. "Actually…I wanted to ask you about Wash and her…" Gale held her hands around her belly, "And the whole deal. But if you're not, uh…no offense…"
"Oh, none taken." Vestal puffed on her pipe. "I'm afraid I can't help you there," she drummed her fingers on her book. "Might want to talk to Nurse-boat or his wife."
"Nurse-boat?" Gale chuckled.
"The…Army…What's-His-Face," Vestal waved in the general direction of Solette's office. "The one who does my paperwork and gets in my way."
"I'll tell him you said that," said Gale with a smirk.
"Fine, I say it to his face all the time." Vestal chuckled to herself. "Say…Gale?"
The sailor froze halfway through the door. "Yeah?"
"This…" Vestal blushed. "Might be a little intimate, but when's the last time you…ah…drained your bilges?"
Gale shot the auxiliary a look of utter uncomprehension. "What?"
"Never mind," Vestal shrugged and went back to reading.
"Okay," Gale sighed and completed her journey through the door. It had just latched behind her when her eyes went wide as dinner plates and a happy gasp slipped through her lips.
—|—|—
"Admiral." Nagato's rough, deep voice was as stern as frozen iron. The imperious aspect was only highlighted by the stiff fabric of her knee-length, heavily armored greatcoat. If Admiral Goto was into the stern, silent type of woman, he'd have said the sturdier uniform was a great improvement. But he wasn't so he didn't. "May I have a word?"
"Of course." Goto glanced up from whatever the hell he was doing. He had so many things on his plate right now, he barely had time to read any of it. He focused all his limited attention on fighting the war, he trusted Ooyodo enough to just sign anything she put in front of him.
On second thought, that probably explained how she kept accumulating those sixty-four-ounce coffee mugs. But since she destroyed them almost as fast in fits of stress-induced rage-against-the-spreadsheets, Goto had no trouble looking the other way.
"Nagato, what's on your…" Goto froze in horror as he noticed something off about the stern big-seven battleship standing imposingly in his doorway. Her face was as grim as always, her posture a face-hardened mass of authoritarian strength. But cradled against her breast, all but invisible against the fabric of her gloves, was her hamster.
While her face was utterly devoid of emotion – save perhaps for a burning hatred directed in a generally enemies-of-Nippon direction – her fingers were lightly stroking the small animal with careful, measured pets.
Nagato hated being seen in public fawning over cute things. She was, more than any other ship in the entire fleet, Japan given form in flesh and steel. She made it quite clear that she considered anything less than utter devotion to her duty beneath her dignity as a battleship and a warrior.
Just purchasing that animal in the first place had been a dance of espionage and logistics that'd make Operation Diamond look like a run to the konbini. For her to take that animal out of her room… Her need for cute things must be so overwhelming she couldn't endure the dozen or so steps between her office and his without something to slow the meltdown.
"Nagato," Goto bolted to his feet and dug one of the kitty calendars he kept in the very bottom drawer of his desk for just such an occasion. It'd had saved his life more than once before. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," Nagato's face was impassive, but her pets sped up a notch. "I…" corded muscle in her neck tensed as she knit her jaw. Her nostrils flared as she hissed in a stiff breath. "I…would like to request…" she closed her eyes and frantically petted the little ball of fur cradled to her chest.
"Here." Goto flipped the calendar to a particularly adorable picture of a Maine Coon kitten. Nagato liked her cats shaggy, although Goto pretended not to know.
"Thank you, sir." Nagato took a moment to drink in its adorable little paws, and a tiny smile graced her usually so-stern features. Her heart started to ease its frantic patter, and what muscles Goto could see slackened their tension.
"Now," Goto gently stroked the battleship's ashy black hair. Nagato might not be as fragile as some of his other girls, but she broke… "What did you want to ask me?"
"I…" Nagato took a breath to calm herself. "I would like to request a patrol route that would take me past Sasebo. If –" she stopped again and smoothed the folds in her coat. "If, and only if, the military situation allows it."
Goto smiled. "Shouldn't be a problem."
Nagato allowed herself a tiny glimmer of a smile. "Thank you, sir, I…" she stopped, and surreptitiously shoved the calendar down her shirt. "If there's nothing else?"
"Dismissed."
"Thank you, sir." Nagato turned on her heel and walked smartly out the door. Goto counted off the steps until she was at her office, waited a few more seconds for her to close the door behind her…and…
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" A high-pitched scream that was still distinctly modulated from Nagato's smoky contralto roared through the building.
Goto ducked his head out his office. "Everyone hear that?"
There was a chorus of nods from the assembled collection of shipgirls and sailors.
"You will go to your grave before you tell another soul," said Goto with deadly earnest. "That is all."
—|—|—
"Welcome to Naval Gunnery One-Oh-One." Texas took great happiness in drawing each syllable of the number through her thick honey-on-cornbread accent. The plump battleship idly spun her parasol in the coastal wind and smiled at the lean, leggy form of former-aircraft carrier Saratoga. "Well, for you sweetie, it's more One-Oh-Two on account of your eight-inchers."
Sara shivered as much as she could in the warm coastal air. "Don't remind me, Tex."
"But you looked so cute with your 'lil pop-guns," Texas allowed herself a moment to reminisce of happier days in the Pacific Fleet.
"They were twenty-centimeter guns," Atago crossed her arms with a huff. She was fully aware that she was no battleship, and that her friend Alaska had her effortlessly beat with those long twelves of hers. But the twenty-centimeter/fifty Third Year number two was a gun as excellent as its name was ponderous. Atago had ten of them and she was far from useless, right? "Twenty-centimeter guns aren't small."
"On you, maybe." Texas chuckled. "But look at Sara here."
Atago did. She looked up at the slender American battlecruiser. And up. And up and up and up. Sara really was astonishingly tall, and almost all that height came from her sinewy legs. She really was a capital ship, one that commanded the undivided attention and awe of all in her presence without speaking a single word.
In hindsight, the image of such a mighty warship paddling around with just a few eight-inch guns was pretty funny. Like those water pistols Alaska liked to hide in the bath. "Point withdrawn."
Sara blushed. "Oh, Atago, you don't have to be like that, honey." The towering battlecruiser fussed with the perilously short hem of her pleated skirt. The wind was stiff today, and if it wasn't for the sturdy tooled leather holsters hanging off her hips, Sara's skirt wouldn't have been nearly as prim and proper. "From what I hear, your class had some spectacular groupings."
"Thank you," Atago blushed. She'd never met Sara before, but the big American was so kind and motherly that the cruiser couldn't but enjoy the praise.
"Sara," Texas' voice had a teasing glint to it.
"Yes, Te–AH!" Sara jolted as a water balloon hit her square in the face.
Texas giggled like a schoolgirl. "You're not fighting deck anymore, Sara. You need to be constantly aware of your surroundings."
Sara mopped her face off with her neckerchief. Luckily none of it had gotten on her shirt, she wasn't sure how well the gray fabric would stand up to a firm soaking, and she'd rather nobody saw her bra. Well…besides Stewart anyway, but he wasn't here so that point was rather moot. "This is payback, isn't it?"
"Sara, I do declare!" Texas put a hand to her chest in mock outrage. "How dare you!"
"Tex –"
"Accusing an 'old-fashioned battle-wagon'," Texas put on a pitch-perfect imitation of Sara's gentle accent, "of such underhanded tactics!"
"I said I was sorry!"
"Please, sweetie," Texas waved a gloved hand at the pouting battlecruiser. "Let your elders talk. We won't be around for much longer anyhow, now that you carriers are about."
Sara crossed her arms with a huff. "That was years ago."
"I know, sweetie." Texas chuckled. "Every ship comes off the line as a cocky little thing. You should've seen Yorkie and I teasing Wyo and her sisters over two inches. And from what I hear, Dreadnought was insufferable."
Sara giggled at the thought of proper, stately Texas being a fresh young girl at some point in her life. "I didn't mean it…I thought it was all in good fun."
"Oh, it was dear," Texas spun her parasol with a smirk. "You couldn't be harsh if you tried, don't think there's a mean-spirited frame in your hull. But, seeing as I finally am as old as you thought I was, I'm going to milk this for all it's worth."
Sara laughed. "I missed you, Texie."
"You too, Sara. Now, Mister Young?"
Cameron waded out into the lapping tides, making Sara look even more statuesque since he sunk down to his knees while Sara stood calmly atop the waves. "So," he settled a big RC boat onto the water and took a second to make sure it was turned on. "My boss let me have these for gunnery practice."
"That's awful nice of him." It took every fiber of Sara's military bearing to avoid ruffling his fussy brown hair. Alaska really did get lucky with him.
"Not…really," Cameron chuckled and sent the boat darting out over the waves. "'laska pretty much keeps the store afloat on her own with all the Hot Wheels she buys."
On the beach Alaska looked up from where she'd been pushing her latest acquisition – a baby-blue Ford GT with orange highlights – back and forth. Atago just looked guilty and pulled the collar of her azure overcoat tighter.
"Wha?" Alaska tilted her head to the side. She was wearing her swimsuit instead of her uniform, mostly because she was going to the beach, and she knew that Cameron liked looking at her in her swimsuit, and she liked it when he liked her. "Say my name?"
"Don't worry about it," said Cameron.
"Okay," Alaska went back to contentedly pushing her cars around the beach.
"Now then." Texas pivoted on her heel to watch the boat zip through the calm water. "See if you can hit that. And just remember, you've got a Ford Mark 1 tied into your radar." The old battleship chuckled. "Back in my day, we did it all" she tapped a finger to her temple. "Up here."
Sara smiled and slipped her pistols from their holsters. It felt strange. She'd never in her life carried weapons like this. But as her hands closed around the polished nickel-steel frames and lovingly carved grips…it felt right.
These were the guns she was born to carry. She thumbed the hammers back with a shiver. Everything was so oiled and precise. Everything moved with the tuned precision of a fine Swiss watch. Her radar fed data into the fire-control computer buried deep in her hull, drenching her eyes with more than she'd ever thought possible. It was like she'd been blind and deaf all her life, and someone had finally given her sight.
"Woah," Sara glanced from one hand to the other as power coursed through her veins.
"Easy there, Neo," Texas chuckled. "What? I was a museum, people toured me. I picked up a thing or two."
Sara was too busy flexing her newly acquired ballistic muscle to comment. It wasn't like flying…but it was just as intoxicating. Was this how the battleships lived? Then again, it's all they'd ever known. They probably didn't understand how awesome a power their rifles were.
"Whenever you're ready, sweetie." Texas put a gentle hand on the small of Sara's back.
The battlecruiser smiled, her teeth glinting in the sun as she tuned in on the distant dot of Cameron's boat. It was only a few hundred feet away, with her hull fully summoned she could probably run it over without moving from where she stood. But a full-size range was difficult to find for guns whose range was measured in tens of thousands of yards. Small-scale would have to do.
Ba-Bang! Her two pistols fired off in near-harmony, sending sub-scale shells arcing through the air to land in a tight straddle around the miniature boat. It took Sara a moment to process what she'd just done. Her instincts kicked in, bringing her fingers off the trigger and returning her guns to their leather holsters. But her conscious mind was consumed with giggling. "Did you see that!"
"That I did, sweetie." Texas clapped Sara on the small of the back – about as high up as she could comfortably reach.
"I straddled on my first shot!" Sara squealed with glee. "Did…did you see that!"
"You're a natural, Sara." Texas smiled. Meanwhile, Alaska and Atago had somehow not only acquired pom-poms, but matching cheerleader outfits and had changed into them while neither capital ship was looking. The two cruisers lead an elaborately-choreographed cheer for Sara where Cameron stared in unrepentant shock at the way Alaska bounced around. Texas sighed. There was something not right with those two girls.
"I…" Sara laughed. "I guess I am!"
-|-|-
"Hi-Hi! Naka-chan Deeeee-su~" Naka formed her gloved hands into a heart and beamed at her webcam. And not even with the semi-fabricated saccharine smile she put on when dancing for an audience of otaku who she knew had done unspeakable things to figurines of her the night before. It was a genuine, happy smile because the little cruiser was genuinely happy. She was back in her home country, she'd found space to set up her rig, and she was streaming for her fans.
And she was doing it with her sister by her side. At least…nominally. "Jintsu, say hi."
"Hello," Jintsu smiled a small – but kind and warm – smile at the little silver orb resting atop Naka's third monitor.
"That's it?" Naka flushed with second-hand embarrassment. Her and Sendai both were oozing with stage presence, but all Jintsu could manage was a simple hello? "Tell them your name, sis!"
Jintsu blinked. "There's only three of us, and I'm not Sendai."
"They don't know that!" Naka waved at the screen, nearly toppling the leaning tower of Mountain Dew cans she'd accumulated over the years. Huh, she should really clean that up sometime. Or should she…she was pretty sure the sugary goo in the bottom of one can was starting to develop sentience. Life was blooming right in her room.
Jintsu shrugged. "I'm Jintsu, Naka-chan's big sister."
"And isn't she darling?" Naka leaned over to squish her sister's cheeks. It wasn't that Jintsu was shy – she'd gotten out of her shell around when she got her last refit – but the middle Sendai was just so darn even. There was no flash when it came to Jintsu, no gimmick to draw in the views. She was just a kind, wholesome girl who rested solidly on an even keel.
In short, Jintsu was a good sister, but terrible clickbait. And none of the Sendai sisters had the kind of cleavage needed to draw in that kind of attention. "So," Naka tugged at her blouse regardless, hoping it would help. "Why don't you tell us what we're playing?"
"Of course!" Jintsu plucked a jewelcase from the desk and held it so the camera could see. "Today we're playing –"
"NAKA!" The thundering roar that only a pair of Iowa-class lungs could deliver thundered through the little room so loudly Naka more felt than heard it. Instantly the formerly-lethargic chat was swamped with messages, almost half of which involved the word 'tiddy' for some reason. Naka didn't even know why, that wasn't even a word.
"Speaking?" Naka made her cutest pose as the door that all but exploded off its hinges a moment later.
"You useless," Jersey stormed through the door in a rage, only to mellow herself when she saw the computer. "Sorry, you streaming?" she said, voice instantly dropping back to her usual half-bored contralto.
"I can take over," said Jintsu. "I mean…for a bit."
"You sure?" asked Naka.
Jintsu nodded. "How hard could it be?"
Naka sighed. Her sister might be gentle as they come, and the best sister a cruiser could ask for. But that didn't necessarily translate to a winning on-stream performance. Then again, Bob Ross did pretty well for himself. Besides, Jersey looked like she had something she needed to discuss, and Naka was all ears. "Sure, I'll be right back."
"You sure I'm not interrupting?" asked the big Iowa.
"Mmm-hmm," Naka lead the battleship into the hallway and tried not to giggle at her newly-fitted hair tufts.
"Where was I?" Jersey closed the door behind her and made sure it was sealed.
"I believe you were calling me useless?"
"Right," Jersey nodded. She furrowed her brow, puffed out her subtly but noticeably swollen chest, and looked for all the world like she was trying to shit out a particularly stubborn turd.
"Getting in the zone?" Naka leaned against the wall with a smirk.
Jersey nodded, then erupted into her tirade again. "You useless Nipponese cunt-boat" thundered the furious battleship, "What the fuck did you tell my destroyers?"
Naka widened her eyes as far as they could go, putting on an adorably gooey 'who, me?' expression complete with gloved hand against her gaping mouth.
"I know it was you," hissed Jersey. The towering battleship loomed over the slender, fragile cruiser. Her muscles teased with corded fury and her icy gaze threatened to frost over her close-fitting aviators.
"Who?" Naka placed a hand on her small chest and gasped in horror. "Me-ow?"
"NAKA!" Jersey roared.
"Nyan~ Jersey!" Naka tossed her hair back with a puff. "You dare accuse me of such malfeasance! Why…you must be crooked as a laser beam is not!"
"So it was you!" roared Jersey.
"Of course it was me!" Naka did her best to match the battleship's volume, but there was only so much her little boilers could do in the face of eight super-heated American units. "You have nekomimi now! Besides, how could I say no to little Heermann's destroyer eyes?"
"Wait," Jersey was momentarily distracted from her wrath. "Heermann started this?"
"She's still a Fletcher, you know," said Naka. "Being quiet just lets her get away with it more often."
"Huh," Jersey stroked her chin. She'd need to keep a tighter leash on those three from now on. "Well…that's a problem for after I beat your scrawny ass into scrap."
"That's what you're going with?"
"Oh…" Jersey put on a predatory smile. "Oh… Ohhhhhh Naka, do you know how much I fucking despise you? If I was in a room with you, Hitler, Tojo, and a gun with two bullets –"
"You'd shoot me twice?" Naka rolled her eyes. "I've seen The Office too. Two-outta-ten, you tried."
"What?" Jersey screwed up her face. "No, I'd shoot Hitler and Tojo, those assholes are fucking shit-birds."
"Oh?" Naka cocked her head, intrigued by the sudden swerve the battleship's rant had taken.
"But when I'm done," said Jersey, "I'd shove the still-hot barrel up your shaft gallery until your meat curtains turn to bacon."
"Ooh!" Naka winced at the thought. Curse her vivid and highly marketable imagination. "Ooh! That's…really clever."
"C'mon!" Jersey smiled. "You're my friend, I'm not gonna half-ass my insults."
"How long were you sitting on that one?"
"Since before Woody, actually," said Jersey. "Just couldn't find a time to use it."
"It's really good," said Naka. "That imagery…" she closed her eyes and made a circle with her thumb and finger. "On point."
"I learned from the best," said Jersey.
"Aww…" Naka clapped her hands to her heart.
"Not you," said Jersey. "Some Greek tripfag on the internet."
"Oh." The cruiser's shoulders slumped.
"Now go back to your…Nipponese vid-shit, I got destroyers to scream at."
"Nyan~ problem!" Naka giggled and tossed a little baggie at the battleship.
Jersey caught the baggie as it bounced off her chest and scowled. "Naka, this is fucking oregano."
"Best I could do on short notice."
The battleship responded by flipping off Naka, but in a friendly way.
Sarah Gale didn't know why she thought taking a pregnancy test was a good idea. After all, even if Vestal was right, that still made her a woman who'd been impregnated by another woman. Except said other woman was actually a thirty-five thousand ton battleship that was scrapped half a century ago who was somehow carrying her child. Why she expected a garden-variety drug store pregnancy test to handle that impossible situation without being dragged off to a very tiny padded cell while mumbling half-formed paradoxes was beyond the tired sailor.
She also didn't know why – after her first try resulted not in a comforting one line or two, but a tiny scrawled message reading 'oh God, why?' – she decided to press on and try another brand. And another. And another. And then those inexplicably unmarked ones that Kirishima had on hand, but refused to explain where she got them from. Gale had gotten a plethora of responses, from 'gurl, you cray' to a very tiny picture of an elderly woman in a bright blue shirt staring with a bewildered expression. And those were among the most helpful of the various responses Gale had gotten, things got progressively worse from there.
Gale had even tried going to Vestal. God knew why; the poor girl knew less about…being a girl than even Gale did. She'd even had to scribble over some of the pictures in her textbook with sharpie just so she could read it, apparently there were some…rather graphic depictions of childbirth that made the old coal-burner queasy. Besides, Vestal didn't have any hydrophones, so she couldn't have helped even if she wanted to.
Luckily, Gale happened to know someone who did have hydrophones. Unluckily, she was Sarah Gale and even her lucky days somehow managed to screw her over. Wash was on coastal patrol – the closest thing to light duty a pregnant battleship could receive – with her escort at the moment, and Tenryu's kids were ranging even further afield. That left only one destroyer on base Gale was even remotely comfortable poking around her middle.
Which is why she was sitting on the edge of a bed that hadn't been made in months, stripped to the waist with her pants unbuttoned while Borie squished her face against the bottom part of her belly. At least the little destroyer was wearing some form of clothing. But like all boons in the poor sailor's life, even that found a way to screw her over.
When Borie heard she was going to be providing medical advice, the little shit wasted no time finding a lab coat. Unfortunately, they don't make lab coats in subminiature-clothes-adverse-destroyer size, so she'd had to get creative with folding and rolling. And as far as Gale could tell, it was the only thing the little destroyer was wearing.
"Dammit, Borie!" Gale scowled at the little destroyer squishing against her pelvis. She could always tell when a Kanmusu was touching her, their skin was always a little cool. It was like touching brushed steel on a brisk day. Gale loved the tingly cool sensation when Wash kissed her down there…much less so when Borie was the one doing the touching.
"Shush!" Borie managed to somehow hiss in a German accent as thick was it was horrible. "Zeh Doktor isz Verking!"
"No you're not!" Said Gale. "You've just been lying there!"
"Doing zeh research!"
"You were snoring twenty minutes ago!"
Borie blinked. "Um…" Her accent vanished as her little destroyer brain scrambled to think of an alibi. "W…would you believe…um…active sonar?"
Gale sighed. At this point, she'd lost all grasp on reality and she honestly would have taken the little destroyer's excuse at face value if she'd just sold it better. "C'mon, Borie. Am I pregnant or not?"
"I think so," said the destroyer.
Gale's heart caught in her throat. Even if she could find the words to express what she was feeling…she could barely breath, let alone speak.
"You're really comfy," continued Borie. She tried to thrust a finger to make a point, but only succeeded in whipping herself in the face with her oversized sleeve. "And when I hug you I want to nap."
"W…wait," Gale's euphoria came crashing down as reality suddenly reasserted itself. Or…as much of reality was could exist when talking to a half-naked, century old destroyer in the form of a pre-teen. "I…is that all you're going off?"
"It's the most relevant evidence," said Borie. "To me."
"Borie," Gale scowled and pulled her T-shirt back on. "I'm going to count to three –"
"Four," said Borie.
"What?"
"Four."
"Borie!" Gale huffed.
"Fouuuur," Borie smirked and held up four fingers.
Slowly, Gale's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. "W-wait," her voice was the palest shadow of its former self. "B-Borie…are you saying that…" her mouth was suddenly dry as bone. "I'm having…quadruplets?"
"Is that what you call four babies?" asked Borie.
Gale nodded, idly clutching at her slim, trim middle. Four babies…she knew what they said about American shipbuilding efficiency, but four! Plus however many Wash was carrying! She was starting to feel very faint indeed. "Yeah."
"Oh, then no."
Gale froze. A moment later, she glared daggers at the little destroyer. "Borie, the fuck?"
"I'm a destroyer!" Borie roared with as much volume as her little lungs could supply. "I kill subs with knives! I do not know how to doctor!"
"But…"
"Do you want to see my medical licences?" Borie shoved a scrap of construction paper covered in little crayon scribbles.
"Borie," Gale tuned over the 'license'. "This just says 'I smart'."
"Mmm," Borie hopped onto the bed next to Gale and smiled. "You had a medical problem and you came to me. I am the smart one here."
Gale scowled, but couldn't say anything in return. After all…the little naked shit had a point. Instead, the sailor silently collected her uniform, tugged it straight in a futile attempt to recapture some of her dignity, and strode out the door with her chin held high. But because her luck hadn't changed from its miserably non-existent state, the moment Gale left the destroyer dorms and before she could come up with any alibi, she ran into her friend from her NCO days.
"'Ay…Gale…" Yeoman Bowers panted with her hands on her sweat-slick knees. Bowers' PT uniform was drenched in sweat, even in the brisk Washington weather, and her short ponytail was unraveling into a slick rat-tail of brown down her neck.
"Jen, you look like hell," Gale chuckled to herself, thinking back to her old days of trying to somehow match Wash's impossible figure.
"'know," Bowers closed her eyes and wiped a waterfall of sweat off her brow. "I hate running!"
"Then why…"
"Williams gave me…new orders." Bowers gulped down water with shaking hands, spilling some of it on her already-soaking shirt. "New orders."
"You have a job now?" Gale smiled. Among the yeomen, Bowers' reputation for skating was mythic. She was pretty sure she'd never actually seen her friend do anything. "What's that got to do with running?"
"Yeoman," gasped Bowers. "For…Commander Jersey."
"Oh!" Gale winced. Wash might be a goddess in human form, but at least her figure was somewhat attainable. Jersey…that woman would send a Greek goddess crying to the gym.
"What're you doing?" Bowers forced herself to keep moving, even if it was just a lazy stroll now that her legs had turned to jelly.
For a moment, Gale contemplated lying. But then she decided the truth might be some much-needed brightness in her friend's day. "Uh…talking to Borie. 'think I might be pregnant."
"Why?" Bowers squinted at Gale.
"Well…" Gale blushed. "Wash and I, we –"
"No," Bowers shook her head. "Why Borie? There's a real OB/GYN *literally eight-hundred yards that way."
Gale gulped. In retrospect, that would have been the smart move. "Ummmmmmmmmmmm…"
—|—|—
New Jersey stalked down the row of assembled destroyers with a dour look on her face. Four destroyers who'd consumed their own body weight in sugar products did their darnedest to stand at full military attention. Three of them were her Taffies, the fourth was Shimakaze. Apparently, the ill-clothed super-destroyer tagged along because she, quote "had nothing better to do, Ou!" unquote.
"Shima, why are you still here?" Jersey gave the lithe girl in her submicron skirt a sideways look.
Shimakaze shrugged.
"You're not even in my chain of command," Jersey couldn't believe it, but she was actually feeling a shred of deep revulsion boiling away deep in her propulsion plant. Was this what Arizona felt like all the time? Is this what it was like to be…crotchety? "I couldn't yell at you if I wanted to."
Shimakaze shrugged again. "I'm bored."
"Well, get out of here!" barked Jersey.
"Can I watch?"
"Can you watch?" Jersey scowled with a voice somewhere between confusion and anger.
Shimakaze nodded with an innocence unbecoming of a girl who most strippers would consider obscenely lewd – though probably out of self-serving business reasons rather than moral uprightness. "My Netflix is out."
"Oh," Jersey's voice snapped back to its usual half-asleep half-bored register. "Yeah, go for it."
"Arigato~" Shimakaze shuffled off to find a nice corner to watch from.
"Anyways," Jersey pivoted on her sneaker to glare down at her three destroyers. "I've given you little shits a hell of a lot of slack, and you all know goddamn why."
The three Fletchers were silent, but a look of solemn understanding passed over their small faces.
"But today isn't my day, it's Mutsu's, understood?"
"Aye, Commander!" barked Hoel.
"This goes for all of you," said Jersey. "This day will be perfect for her. If there are antics or fuckups, you will not be the source."
The destroyers nodded solemnly.
"And if you set one fucking toe past the line," said Jersey. The battleship was barking at her own girls, but she would be the first to admit her tirade was directed at least partially back at her. "So help me God, I will make you gnaw it off and eat it."
"Oh! Good one!" Shimakaze applauded.
Jersey glanced off at nothing in particular. "The fuck is with this base?"
—|—|—
Uploader's Note: *Obstetrics and gynaecology* for those of you who don't know Doc stuff
