Rule 33. Ship girls are no longer allowed to refer to 3rd Fleet HQ as, "Those fucking feather merchant retards with no clue how the world outside their plush offices actually works."
Chevalier, DD-451, US Navy, was in a bad mood. Luckily, it was one easy to diagnose. Unluckily, it was one very hard to eliminate.
"TF 57, you're too close together. Open the formation."
Chevalier groaned as they were forced once again out of their formation. They weren't missile ships! They needed to stay close and in a specific formation if they wanted to be able to defend themselves against aircraft and submarines! Stupid Third Fleet fuckheads!
One of the quirks of the American shipgirl program was that all shipgirls were nominally in the Seventh Fleet, but with the Japanese effectively taking responsibility for the Western Pacific, that meant the Seventh Fleet had to operate in what had become the Third Fleet's traditional stomping grounds. Making matters worse was that the Third Fleet was all traditional ships, and thus full of officers who knew absolutely nothing about shipgirl operations. And when Admiral Holloway was away, they had a bad habit of trying to take control of shipgirl task forces like Task Force 57.
The force in question consisted of the Fletcher class destroyers Chevalier, Pringle, Leutze, Watson, Conway, Thatcher, Hazelwood, and famed Taffy 3 survivor Heermann. Moffett pitched in flagship duties and some extra surface firepower, while cruisers Denver, Columbia, Boston, and Canberra rounded out the force.
And here they were, puttering about deaf, blind, and out of position to do anything, because those fucking feather merchant retards with no clue how the world outside their plush offices actually works didn't grasp that the Abyssals couldn't track you by your signal emissions, that they didn't have guided weapons to cover formation gaps, and worst of all weren't even using the Abyssal tracking system and instead had put a fucking E-2D overhead that had turned back two hours ago for lack of fuel and could only tenuously communicate with them anyway!
Suddenly, Chevalier became very aware that her shipmates were all looking at her funny. A sinking feeling began to creep into her gut. "Uh, did I say that out loud?"
"Yes, yes you did," Porter replied over the radio. "Third Fleet HQ is furious, and Admiral Holloway is definitely going to hear about this."
Chevalier groaned and put her head in her hands, starting as Heermann put a hand on her shoulder. "Privately, I agree with you," her sister said quietly. "But there is a time and place for calling out your nominal superiors, even if they're idiots. Don't worry too much, though. Admiral Holloway has a lot more pull than those morons."
Chevalier was almost glad that an Abyssal cruiser-destroyer group picked that moment to crash the party. Otherwise she might have scuttled herself out of shame.
AN: I have no idea if this actually conforms to actual USN tactics. Sue me.