Authors' Notes: Japan, finally! What is pacing
How do you Russian patronymic
Our thanks to Andmeuths from SpaceBattles for some suggestions on improving Chapter One.
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CHAPTER 13
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A few watches later
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Essex seemed particularly tense this change of watch, Ayaka noted. "What's wrong?" she asked.
{My Hero Academia Original Soundtrack - Spreading Anxiety}
YouTube watch?v=1zwXCnKfahI
"Reds bearing 315, angels 20, 400 miles out!" Bell squawked.
Ayaka was almost literally of two minds about that. Being born well after the Cold War, she had no particular dread of the Russians.
The same could not be said of Other Her, between bombarding the North Koreans in the 1950s and being reactivated in the 1980s as part of the 600-ship Navy specifically in response to the Soviet Kirov-class missile cruisers. There was a palpable, deep-seated distrust of them infusing almost every bit of Other Her and it did not help that she had not been awake to see the collapse of the USSR.
"Overlord, Uatu One-One, requesting confirmation of Russians bearing 315, angels 20, 400 miles out."
"Affirmative, Uatu One-One, two-ship of Russian Air Force Tu-22s flying TFV maritime patrol and fire support," the reply came back shortly. "Would you like me to patch them in?"
"Yes, please."
"Copy that, wait one."
There was a pause before a Russian-accented voice got on the radio. "Uatu One-One, Shikra 201, are you reading us?"
"Reading you five by five, Shikra 201."
"Ah, wonderful! Captain Anatoli Mikhailovich Gryzlov at your service, Yorktown Ernestasova. Well, I say 'captain' because that's the closest equivalent and most of you don't speak suka blyat." Oakland giggled at the comment. "What a shame, I say. Apologies for missing out on the first encounter. Any more abyssals need to make sandwiches?"
Essex shuddered. Ayaka felt a tinge of fear; from Other Her, she knew full well what the oblique joke meant.
"Negative, Shikra 201."
"Relax, Yorktown Ernestasova, and tell Essex Donaldova and… oh, a new comrade?" Gryzlov paused, and faint whispers of off-mic conversation could be heard. "Yes, yes! Tell Iowa Ivanova to, what is that word, chill? You are not Yorktown Ilyanova. Let the past be the past; I was but a child in the last days of the Union, and we are all friends now!"
"My ass!" Bell squawked, though on the unit's private channel fortunately.
"Bell!"
===[===]===
{Carpenter Brut - Turbo Killer}
YouTube watch?v=wy9r2qeouiQ
"Uatu, Overlord, be advised," the communique came some time later. It was a beautiful morning to be reaching the Kurils. "Seal inbound. Check your fire. Repeat, Seal inbound. Check your fire."
"Great, the speed slut," West Virginia muttered over her radio from within the Tripoli, where she was awake and was getting ready for the change of watch.
"Ah, the weirdo Colorado. Here she goes again," someone remarked with a sigh.
"Copy that, Overlord," Yorktown radioed, ignoring both comments.
"Who?" Ayaka asked.
"Shimakaze, of course," Hammann said with a tooth-baring frown.
Oh, right, she of the black bunny ears headband, white sleeveless sailor top with blue collar, elbow gloves, blue skirt that might as well be a belt, black G-string and striped thighhighs.
"I know all of us shipgirls are seething cesspools of carnal urges and far too many uninhibitedly flaunt the flesh and indulge them via fornication," West Virginia stopped short of outright ugily hawking up phlegm at the term, "but at least most know to be discreet." It didn't sound like much of a concession, not the way she bit out the words like she was crushing them between the teeth of a steel-jaw trap and arms twitching like she was fighting off the urge to gesticulate. "Not this speed slut who runs around in public wearing a perversion of a good sailor uniform that wouldn't be out of place in Hefner's den of debauchery! Just because you have perverts perverting something into their sexual fantasy does not mean that the original noble nature, such as that of the nun or nurse or policeman, is henceforth turned profane! I don't care if there is some demonstrated benefit to ample amounts of copulation, some symbolic logic about power in the seed of life that makes reproductive fluid an excellent catalyst for drawing Or Energy! We are officers and ladies of the United States Navy! It is unbecoming to act like a rutting - literally and figuratively - traveling troupe of witches and whores!"
Ayaka pursed her lips firmly. She had sent messages to Alice shortly after getting the assignment, seeking to find out more about the amalgam's members. As it turned out, for all her mania for CLOSE RANGE, West Virginia was apparently a staunchly traditional sort; she held a hunting licence she had used to actually bring personally-slain game back to Everett with and there were actual pen and paper letters from her to the high command decrying in impeccable penmanship the immodest attire and alleged behaviour of certain shipgirls and calling for reform. It had never gained much traction.
Ayaka did entirely agree on the matter of shipgirl decency and dignity - there was a proper time and place for such things! - but West Virginia was frankly a bit too strident for her. As it was, she was just glad Helena and St Louis hadn't been assigned to Uatu. It was bad enough that she perpetually looked one bad day away from letting free an explosive rant at someone with an impaired sense of modesty, a condition that had evidently been fulfilled today. The proprietious old battleship would never shut up if they had.
"But we are witches, aren't we?" One-Six remarked. "I mean, maybe more Etherite: The Technomancing than the traditional robe and broomstick sort, but we are still witches, right?"
"Whores… maybe I should start charging," One-Three said, a hungry look on her face as she licked her lips audibly. "After all, if you're good at something, never do it for free, right?"
"Three, the Joker is not a role model and you did not just insinuate you intend to violate FM 27-1 chapter 10," Yorktown said.
"No, One, I definitely did not," One-Three said with a face so straight you could use it as a ruler.
"Good. Let us talk no more of fundraisin-"
Ayaka's surroundings abruptly turned fuzzy and Yorktown's speech elongated as the acceleration she had spent the past few days figuring out how to hang activated in response to detecting an incoming high-speed object.
"Eh?"
She tracked first with radar and then her eyes the form of an underdressed blonde shipgirl and three autonomous turrets, skating across the water at a speed that was still frightfully great even under this altered frame of reference, if not imperceivably so any longer. Lightning snapped, crackled and flowed freely across her body, similar to that of the lunge rote. A massive wave front followed in her wake.
Kamisama above, what was she wearing?!
Ayaka couldn't help the bright red flush that sprung to life on her face, her umbrella falling from her fingers as she reflexively covered her mouth with her hands. It was one thing to look at Shimakaze through photographs or video. It was a whole different matter to see her in the flesh, and she now understood very viscerally why West Virginia had been so appalled by the other shipgirl's perpetual state of undress.
The shipgirl, who had herself been scanning the convoy visually, froze mid-turn when she realised that Ayaka was following her progress, grey eyes widening and mouth falling open. The animate turrets, too, stared in horror.
Tripping on something, they went flying.
"Ouuuuuuu-"
Ayaka had barely begun Stepping towards where her fire directors told her Shimakaze was projected to land when the other shipgirl landed handfirst on the water, did a handspring and slammed back down, sliding to a stationkeeping halt in a perfect three-point landing Tony Stark would have approved of. A few seconds later, the deafening crack of crossing back under the sound barrier hit them.
Oh Musubi no Kami, why, Ayaka thought with horror as she noticed the microskirt hang low enough to expose butt crack.
Then Shimakaze turned to face her squarely, looking annoyed, spitting out words so quickly they came out in real time even under the accelerated frame of reference. {What is with you Timeworkers doing that? It was bad enough with only Mamakagi!}
Ayaka blinked.
"Oh, right!" Shimakaze abruptly switched to Japanese-accented English. "You Americans barely speak any Japanese! Sorry, I forgot! Shimakaze, first and only of my class, very fast picket. When it comes to speed, I'm the best there is, swift as the island breeze!" The stripper destroyer (stripoyer? Destripper?) said with arm raised.
Still overwhelmed by the sight of the shipgirl before her, who Ayaka was surprised hadn't been arrested or otherwise censured for public indecency a dozen times over yet, the girl whose screen was busy being as blue as her dress reflexively slipped back into habit.
That is to say, she bowed, form perfected from practice, and said in Japanese, {Pleased to meet you. I am Ayaka Godai. Thank you for having me.}
Shimakaze froze and looked, really looked carefully at Ayaka again.
Ayaka wondered if she had accidentally let slip some Gifuese into her words and retried, careful to properly enunciate standard Japanese.
Shimakaze's stare only grew stronger, switching back to Japanese as she did so. {What are you?}
{Sorry?}
There was an edge to the stripoyer's gaze that reminded Ayaka a bit too much of that inauspicious first meeting with O'Bannon. {My warbook says you're supposed to be Iowa!}
{I am!}
{That can't be right! If you're a Natural Born… when I first saw you in the convoy, I thought you were one of them, and now-not like-like-I've met yonsei and gosei and whatever-sei both in Yokosuka and amongst the civilians, and there's always been something about how they speak that's off, something about their movements that isn't right, if they can even string two sentences together! Not like you!}
Ayaka didn't know what to say to that.
"Seal, how copy?" Fortunately, enough time had finally passed for the rest of the world for Yorktown to notice and sail over.
"Ou-ou-ou-ohayo!" Shimakaze said in English at a normal speed, turning to face her. "Uatu One-One, Seal, reading you five by five!"
Yorktown nodded. "Overlord, Uatu One-One, have made contact with Seal."
"Copy that, Uatu One-One. Seal, proceed with VBSS sweep."
"Hai~" Shimakaze pulled out devices from somewhere, handed some to the turret trio and in a blur, a discharge of lightning and a sonic boom that sent water flying and reactivated the acceleration Ayaka had deactivated moments ago, she was off, running scans on the convoy and its guardians to make sure there wasn't anything out of the ordinary on board.
Everything went uneventfully until it was the Tripoli's turn.
"Ou, hag! Gotten laid yet?" Shimakaze asked as she waved to West Virginia, having made her way to the shipgirl berthing compartments.
"Rut you, speed slut," West Virginia muttered.
"Now, now, that's not a nice thing to say around Rensouhou-chan, you know!" Shimakaze raised a finger chidingly, then turned to the turrets. "Go ahead first, okay?"
Rensouhou-chan made affirmatives in Morse code and went on their way, after which Shimakaze turned back to West Virginia.
"Osoi~ I'll be glad to share a few boys with you if you're finally ready to start! Wait, do I even have any of your type?" Shimakaze raised a contemplative finger to her mouth. "I prefer my main guns fast to fire and reload, but maybe you've got a slow groove on your mind?"
"I said, rut that."
"You want a man with a slow hand?" She started singing the Pointer Sisters hit while dodging swings from the battleship. "You want a lover with an easy touch? You want somebody who will spend some time? Not come and go in a heated rush? When it comes to love-"
"Rut off."
"Seal, stop playing with Two-Two and do your job," Yorktown said flatly.
"Hai! Don't be slow about finding me when your machine shop is ready to drink up, hag!" Shimakaze lazily dodged a final swing from West Virginia and sped off.
After some more searching, Shimakaze returned to the front of the convoy. "Overlord, Seal, convoy checks out!"
"Copy that, Seal."
"Uatu," Shimakaze said next, "stand by for space fold!" Turning to face Hokkaido, she dropped into a runner's starting position while Rensouhou-chan lined up off to the side and began raising their flippers in order while making sounds like the flagging-off of a race.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
BEEP
With an explosion of water and a sonic boom, Shimakaze sprinted into the distance, disappearing out of visual range.
She ran back.
Ayaka felt a tingly sensation like static electricity.
Shimakaze ran off and came back again.
The electrical sensation intensified.
To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again and again, the feeling steadily growing with every lap she made.
Shimakaze completed one last lap and the tingling peaked before settling, leaving only a pleasant warm feeling.
The view ahead now looked a bit off, but Ayaka couldn't put a finger on it.
She found it hard to describe what happened next.
One moment, the convoy was still in the waters of the Kurils.
The next, she sailed through some invisible boundary, and Hokkaido was suddenly just there within visual range, without the slightest hint of discontinuity.
"Holy shit!" Someone shouted, and from Yorktown's failure to reprimand the offender, it was apparently a common sentiment.
"I'm pretty good, huh?" Shimakaze said, making some gesture that involved her standing side-on to the convoy and pointing with her index and middle fingers.
"Uatu, Overlord, be advised, inbound chicks from Kosumi Squadron."
Ayaka couldn't miss the way Yorktown's head snapped up at the announcement, or Hammann's low, dark mutter of "At least it's not Tomonaga."
There was a buzz faint from distance as Type 0 Fighter Model 52s approached, Yorktown's combat air patrol (CAP) of F4F-4s meeting them halfway and circling around each other.
"Yorktown Actual, have made contact," the squadron leader radioed in.
"Yorktown Actual copies," Yorktown said.
Shimakaze went through a gymnastics routine while waiting for the whole convoy to go through the folded space, making a comment about its slowness every so often, but eventually the rearguard destroyers indicated there were no more freighters left, and with a reversal of the flagging-off sequence, the effect collapsed.
{The Place Promised in Our Early Days Original Soundtrack - Daily}
YouTube watch?v=qLdQpNYSIwg
Shortly afterwards, a carrier division sailed into visual range, four destroyers circling a pair of carriers. More shipgirls trailed at a distance.
Hiryuu had brown eyes and short brown hair tied into a small ponytail on the right. She wore an orange kimono and a dark green hakama skirt, an apron modelled after the bow end of a flight deck with the first kana of her name over that. For legwear she had white tabi socks and sandals like miniature carriers. She wore a three-fingered brown yugake glove on her right hand. Her rigging was simple: A quiver with a mast on a brown sling, a stack hanging from a belt, and a flight deck on her left arm. She held her yumi bow in her left hand.
Souryuu had blue eyes and hair in twintails bound by white ribbons pointing up such that they looked like the horns of a dragon. Her clothing was similar to Hiryuu's except for being green kimono on blue hakama skirt and with the flight deck on the right arm.
Hiryuu waved cheerily at the amalgam; Souryuu was more reluctant in her greetings.
Yorktown merely returned a noncomittal look; Hammann's frown was more blatant.
J-Carrier Division Two came to a halt and saluted. "Yorktown, I am your relief," Hiryuu said, her English Japanese-accented but curiously with a hint of Russian.
"I stand relieved," Yorktown replied, returning the salute.
"We in the Second Carrier Division, First Air Fleet, His Majesty's Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force welcome you to Japan on behalf of the Japanese division of Task Force VALKYRIE's Pacific Protectorate!" Hiryuu said brightly. "Please hold on." She switched over to the TFV channel. "Overlord, Dragon One, have made contact with Uatu, over."
"Copy that, Dragon One. Proceed as instructed. Informing convoy. No change in orders."
"Ou! What about me?!" Shimakaze said, cutting into the conversation.
"Seal, return to patrol. Overlord out."
"Alright! Let's go, Rensouhou-chan! See you all again soon! Hurry up and find yourself a man, hag!" Shimakaze shouted so quickly her words blurred together, and she zoomed off with her animated turrets, leaving churning waves and another sonic boom in her wake.
"Say goodbye to the Hayai Harlot, girls!" Hiryuu said.
"Bye, Hayai Harlot!" Her escorting destroyers said.
After the desstriper departed, Hiryuu looked over the element and squinted in confusion. "When did the US Navy recover Warship Number 111 and complete her, Yorktown-chan?"
"Huh?" Yorktown made no attempt to hide her befuddlement at the non sequitur.
She pointed at Ayaka while sailing over. "That's yon-mato, isn't she?"
Ayaka started. "Ehhh?"
"I mean, she's doing a great job of blending in as one of you, but I'm quite sure that's one of us. She even squeaks like one of us. I've met N1ers and other foreigners who've been using the language for decades and they can never get it totally right." She looked back at Ayaka. "Say it again, please?"
"Ah… ehhh?"
"See? Perfection!"
"But I'm-"
"HAHAHA!" Hiryuu couldn't keep the act up any longer. "Just messing with you, Iowa-san." She heartily slapped Ayaka on the upper arm a few times with an outstretched arm of her own.
Ayaka merely stared.
"I dunno, Hiryuu, she really does remind me more of Fusou-san," Souryuu said.
Hiryuu looked at Ayaka again, twisted to scrutinize her, hand on chin. "There's some resemblance, I think?" She clapped her hands sharply twice. "Right! Let's begin the distribution!" Now serious, she began barking out orders, and about half of the cargo ships peeled off from the convoy, the gaggle of destroyers and coast defence ships that had been following in J-CarDiv Two's wake forming up on them with practised precision. At least one was bound for Hokkaido proper, while the rest would be following the northern Honshu coast south and west to other major ports in the country, the better to distribute the desperately-needed foodstuff from multiple hubs rather than rely on waiting for it to radiate outward from the facilities in the Tokyo Bay region.
With the splitoff done, the remaining half of the convoy began heading southwards along the edge of the Tohoku region, guarded by their shepherds.
"Dragon One, Uatu Two-One, forming up," Essex said as her element disembarked from Tripoli and approached. For the final stretch, the entire amalgam would not be rotating out to break but would stay on the clock once they were up and only take their rest and resupply once they got to Yokosuka.
"Uatu Two-One, are we doing the thing?!" Hiryuu asked excitedly.
"Are we?!" The rest of J-CarDiv Two chorused.
Essex mutely produced her recorder.
"Yes!"
"Alright, girls!" Hammann shouted. "A one, a two, a one two three!"
West Virginia twitched.
"Almost Heaven…"
===[===]===
"How're the newcomers?" Hiryuu asked a short while later.
Yorktown merely gave her a Look.
Hiryuu's smile dimmed. "That bad?"
Yorktown checked the channel was Secure and that they were not speaking aloud, then looked at Hammann.
"One-Two - that's your Warship Number 111 - is an idiot," the destroyer said after checking for herself that only the three of them were on.
"Like Quincy?" Hiryuu asked.
"I wish she was the funny kind of idiot. No."
"How so, then?"
"She's got the self-preservation instincts of a lemming."
"You don't mean…" Hiryuu got a section of Type 0s from her CAP to make a pass over the sector Uatu One was charged with covering, the move allowing her to get a visual on the battleship with the maddeningly unplaceable features without shifting in any way that might betray her attention. If she could be frank, she hadn't been entirely joking with the suggestion that Iowa was really the never-completed fourth Yamato. Her kids had heard from Sara's kids about the Natural Born, but that didn't make it any less confusing when her warbook was telling her one thing and the features and mannerisms she observed with her senses, such as they were, told her another. "William Porter?"
"Yes, Wee Willie Worthless."
"But… why?" By now, Hiryuu's smile, already barely clinging to life, had melted away into open confusion.
"Willie D Fuck should I know?! You're all inscrutable." Hammann started making irritated incoherent sounds under her breath.
Meanwhile, the fact that they were following the east Tohoku coast had put a thought in Ayaka's head, and she launched a Kingfisher into the air. At her mental direction, the scout plane broke from the convoy and headed inland.
Splitting off some of her attention to what the toy-sized plane saw, Ayaka watched as it flew over thriving habitations near the coast. The area had been spared the worst of the abyssal predations, but that wasn't, she abruptly realized, why she was interested in it.
An outside observer going in blind would never have guessed that much of what the scout was seeing had been engulfed by the great tsunami following the March 11th 2011 earthquake. 12 years had been enough to heal the external signs of the devastation that had befallen northeastern Japan that day.
If only the same could be said of Imamura.
Her fellow townspeople had always done their best to keep up with the news of the ancestral homeland even in the days before air and electronic mail, and learning of the disaster had filled them all with great sadness and an eagerness to contribute the metaphorical widow's last coins to the reconstruction. Little had they known that a mere two years later, it would be their turn, and unlike, say, Onagawa or Kesennuma, Imamura had withered away. Whether it had been the original timeline where around 500 of them - including herself, Ayaka noted with a dark smile - had been killed or the present one where all had escaped with their lives, people had steadily moved away from Imamura rather than stay to rebuild, FEMA assistance or not. Eventually, all that was left was abandoned buildings telling a now-ended story and the Imamura Memorial Museum that had used to be the high school.
The sight of a derailed train lying on its side, still uncleared after 3 years, floated to the surface of her mind from Uileag's memories of that trip 7 years ago to find her with Kas and Okudera-sempai.
Ayaka sometimes wondered why. Was it merely a human desire to leave the site of disaster and tragedy behind? Or, with what she now knew of paranormal matters, had the Cometfall been yet another move in a vast arcane game of cosmic entities, gods and spirits played at an extradimensional scale beyond the comprehension of mankind? She suspected there was some Correspondent significance in the fact that the fragment of Fafnir had landed squarely on the Shirokaze Shrine like some overgrown precision-guided munition and said destruction of the town's spiritual heart had been followed by the bonds that tied it together unravelling.
Lost in thought, she didn't notice that Willie had been staring at her.
After the convoy turned the corner on southeast Japan near Choshi, a new batch of Japanese shipgirls came out to meet them. At the front of the destroyer squadron in the lead were two Yuugumos, the destroyers obvious by their distinctive maroon pinafores, white long-sleeved blouses, turquoise bowties, grey pantyhose and black and white lace-up boots. One had brown eyes and short green hair with blunt bangs, braids to each side and a payot longer than the rest of the hair. She held a 12.7cm/50 Type 3 twin gun mount in her left hand, had quadruple torpedo launchers strapped to each thigh and the stack she wore using two backpack-like straps had a swing arm with a Type 96 25mm twin autocannon mount.
Slight trembling gave away the brave front she was projecting. This would be Takanami, making the unit J-Destroyer Squadron Two.
The other-
{Voices of a Distant Star Original Soundtrack - Beginning}
YouTube watch?v=nJ08pVBLFQ0
Reality flickered and took on a brownish-grey hue.
A peal of thunder.
The hissing of the falling rain, lending a blur to what lay beyond.
The whispering of wind, sounding vaguely like a gentle, melancholy tune played on a piano.
There was a bus stop by an unremarkable, desolate road, one of unfamiliar design. Blocky, dull grey, clearly function over form. The sign out front was more colourful - red, orange and white - and the wording on it was Japanese, but the characters were indistinct, muddled enough to be unreadable. A bicycle was parked outside. There was something serene yet sad about the sight.
Under the shelter of the bus stop, a boy and a girl, both middle schoolers from the look of things, sat on the wooden bench within and chatted, wet shoes removed. An open box of chocolates and canned drinks sat next to them.
The girl, who was seated closer to the exit, turned her head to look out-
Reality reasserted itself into a sunny day on the sea.
What was that?
Ayaka blinked a few times and refocused on the other Yuugumo. She had yellow eyes with a purple tint and long hair that was black on the outside and pink on the inside, a half updo held in place by a yellow ribbon. Her mouth open to bare noticeably sharp canines.
Unlike her sister, Naganami's rigging had a lot more going on. A gold blade of Or Energy extended from a bracer on her left wrist, an inactivated twin on the right. Ayaka had never studied the blade, but Imamura's schools had been small places, and by osmosis if nothing else she recognised the other shipgirl's posture as a kendo guard stance. Vector-capable thrusters were mounted on her lower legs and to the sides of her stack. Directly behind her shoulder blades were a pair of pods marked with grooves that looked like missile cells.
They formed up on the convoy without incident.
It was not far past where Nojimazaki Lighthouse's powerful lamps were futilely fighting back the encroaching night when the convoy split again. Uatu, J-CarDiv Two and J-DesRon Two followed a few of the freighters northward, passing Sunosaki Lighthouse as they headed up the Uraga Channel into Tokyo Bay. The remainder continued their westward journey to western Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku.
Night had fallen by the time their section of the convoy made it into Tokyo Bay proper and the tugs were in place to begin towing the cargo ships the final few miles to their berths. The excitement had worn off, and Ayaka was starting to feel fatigue setting in, though fortunately she wasn't going to be yawning just yet.
The sight of Tokyo, towers of gleaming glass and steel brilliantly lit up in defiance of the ongoing war, still took her breath away. Even the cranes involved in reconstruction didn't detract from the view. It was different from being in their midst or looking down from from the Skytree, and she mentally added "see Tokyo from the water at night" to her bucket list before immediately checking it off.
J-DesRon Two would be remaining on station a while longer. For the rest of them, it was time to turn and head back south to Fleet Activities Yokosuka, which Tripoli and the two destroyers had headed straight for.
"Uatu, gather!" Yorktown shouted once they had made landfall and dismissed their rigging, making a stop gesture as she did so. "Dragon, please hold."
"Roger," Hiryuu said, her unit standing around a distance away.
Yorktown then got onto her radio. "Overlord, Uatu One-One. Uatu is feet dry. Repeat, Uatu is feet dry."
"Copy that, patching Uatu Actual in."
"Uatu One-One, Uatu Actual," Zelben said. "Anything new to report?"
"No, Sir."
"Good. Go in for your maintenance baths. You have a meeting scheduled with Admiral Minami after breakfast tomorrow. Current plan is at least one more day of shore leave afterwards and joint patrols while the transports finish unloading and turnaround, details pending."
"Very good, Sir."
"Any questions?"
Yorktown looked around at the amalgam, waited a bit for the more reserved among them to turn thought to word. When nothing came, she said, "No, Sir."
"Very well. Good job, girls. Dismissed. Uatu Actual out."
Zelben hung up.
"Personnel who have been here before, go straight to the baths. FNGs, with me. We need to get you checked in with security first. Uatu, advance!"
With a fair bit of enthusiasm, even from the normally inhibited ones like Essex and West Virginia, the veterans dashed off in the direction of the repair docks, outpacing J-CarDiv Two.
"Ma'am, what about our luggage?" One of the newcomers asked, beating Ayaka to the question.
"It'll be taken care of," Yorktown said. "All of you remembered to take out one change of clothes before forming up this morning?"
A flurry of activity followed before a unanimous "Yes, Ma'am."
"Good."
As they followed Yorktown through the base grounds, Ayaka pulled out her phone and considered the roaming icon.
===[===]===
Half a world away, Uileag's phone vibrated.
Discreetly, he fished for it and slid an eye off the lecture in progress to glance at the Line message that had come in.
"Have reached Japan. Long day. Talk tomorrow night. Love you"
===[===]===
Authors' Notes: WTB Ayane Sakura singing Slow Hand in the Shimakaze voice and Sumipe singing Country Roads in the Hiryuu and Souryuu voice.
The shipgirls' patronymics are based on their commanding officers as at commissioning, since getting the last CO was much harder.