"So, hi, everyone. I awaken this account from a four-year quiescence to crosspost some new canon goodness (per JMPR) that I put up last week." -Shadow, Space Battles Forum
Early Uploader's Note: Caboose here. Real quick, I want to say this is something we've ALL been waiting for. Prepare yourselves! See you at the bottom.
Fast and Ready
Coral was taking hold on a rusting hull. Dark and deep, she slumbered.
It was not in her nature to sit idle.
Every creak of her slowly-collapsing superstructure, every subsurface groan of her collapsed mast, they grated on her sleeping mind. She'd been built with one purpose, and one purpose only:
Control the Sea.
She'd fallen against the Abyssals, died so that the panicked passenger and cargo ships could make port, under the watchful eye of heavy guns and coastal defense missiles. She'd died alone, so that her sisters didn't have to fall with her. When all hope had seemed lost, she had turned into the foe, and smashed them with every weapon at her disposal.
She'd been all across the seven seas, from the frigid Arctic to the heat of the Arabian Gulf. She'd been at the vanguard of a wounded nation's response to an act of terror; and whenever Her nation had called upon her, she had answered.
Though budget and shortsightedness plagued her with mechanical woes, she attracted to her a crew that could rise above, could make the impossible possible, and made her name shine.
Bong.
Above her sleeping form, her ancestors fought the same battle she had. Injectors clicked open, and seven turbines spooled to life.
Bong.
Her bridge, silent since her last Captain had fallen, stirred to life. Splintered steel mended where Abyssal shells had torn it asunder.
Bong.
Electricity arced and roared across her veins, and wet powder dried from the heat of her soul.
General Quarters.
They thought that no warship of her vintage could give rise to a ship spirit.
General Quarters.
But twenty-one years was a long time to serve.
General Quarters.
Her twin screws churned the water around her into a broad tail of white foam as she ascended. Her sharp eyes opened, and saw the light rushing towards her. Two ship spirits called out for her, for anyone, anyone who could help. Seven hundred souls joined them, begging for aid.
General Quarters.
There was no one else who could reach them in time. No one but Her.
She would not fail them.
She answered their pleas with the screaming power of one hundred and five thousand horsepower, with steel and shell and shrieking missiles.
A memory of her last Chaplain floated through her mind as she broke the surface.
"... for we are… Tough, Rugged, FAST!... and Ready."
The words of her Captain rang through her mind once more as her 5/54 barked and missiles erupted from her launchers into the face of the foe.
"Woe to any enemy that attacks this ship, because the last thing they see before they go up in a ball of
fire and ash, will be a haze-gray destroyer with 55 on its bow."I'll make you proud, sir.
-
Black screamed as Abyssal shells tore away one of her guns, the little Fletcher racing between splashes as she strove to throw their aim. The Abyssal cruisers astern of her were trying to bracket her, to kill her and get at the people and supplies in the convoy ahead. She bled oil and blood from near misses, and she was so tired of running full-tilt. Her fuel reserves were emptying fast, and her boilers were running hot, too hot.
Little Blakeley plinked away with what she could, but if Black's five-inch guns couldn't do more than annoy the cruisers, Blake's four-inchers didn't even accomplish that much. The little escort had heart, but not firepower.
"This is Black to anyone in range! Convoy 616 is under heavy attack!" Black screeched out over the airwaves between volleys. "Please! Someone! We need support!"
The airwaves bore no good news.
Blakeley's shriek stole her attention back, and Black's head snapped around to see her frantically trying to keep her aft casemate from brewing up. Her armor was shredded by a near miss from one of those eight-inch shells screaming past overhead, and she was losing speed.
"ANYONE-"
The sea a hundred meters in front of her on her one-o-clock erupted.
A girl roared up out of the spray. Haze-gray fatigues wrapped her soaked torso, her skirt fluttering in the wind of her passage. In her hands was a five-inch naval rifle; her legs - long, long legs - were wrapped in steel greaves, a gatling pistol at her hip. Her rigging manifested at the apex of her leap, as her hull came crashing back down into the waves. She pushed up the ballcap that covered her eyes, and those storm-gray orbs flickered to Black.
"DUCK!" she shouted, hand flickering to her hip. Black flinched to the side as an unearthly roar filled the air with fire, and a shell that would have smashed into her back exploded harmlessly half a mile away.
"Who-" Black started, eyes wide.
"No time! Turn about and let's get 'em, sister!" the newcomer barked. Her five-inch boomed, sending shells back at the foe, and her backpack opened, sending missiles roaring off to the edge of the horizon.
"O-okay!" Black said with a hurried nod. Pulling alongside as she turned out, she saw that the girl had the build of a destroyer, but the size of a very, very large light cruiser. The new girl pushed off the water, foam spraying from her props and around her hull. Her long legs carried her up to an eye-watering thirty-five knots, straight into the Abyssals.
She turned her head and looked at Black, a grin dancing across her face, red ponytail whipping in the wind of her passage. "You've got left, I'll take right! I'll keep the shells off us! Let's show 'em what we can do!"
Black felt the other girl's aggressive good-nature rubbing off on her, restoring spirits worn down by hours of cat-and-mouse games with the cruisers. She grinned back. "Right!"
She followed the girl with 55 blazoned on her shins, straight into the maw of the enemy.
Shells rained around them, but never hit. Every time one might, that gatling would snap up and remove it. 55 was fast on the draw, fast on her feet, and always ready.
It was almost like sailing with Frisco. If Frisco and a Taffy had a lovechild, anyway, that grew up almost as big as Frisco.
The Abyssals stood no chance, and died when the two of them closed to knife-fighting range. Shells pocked their hulls and turned them open; missiles tore off their superstructures. Torpedoes cracked their keels, and finally sent them back to their rest.
It took all of a half-hour.
As they neared the convoy, Black, between stolen breaths, turned to her savior.
"What's your name? I've never seen a kanmusu like you before!"
"Kanmusu?" the new girl asked, quirking her eyebrow, her eyes now hidden behind a pair of black Oakleys. "What's that?"
"It's Japanese. It means… well, basically, ship spirit."
"Oh." the new girl said, nodding. "I'm Stout! DDG-55."
"Wow, you're a destroyer? Me too! I'm Black! DD-666!" Black said, bouncing in place. "Thanks a lot for the save!"
"Don't mention it," she replied with a smile and a dismissive wave. "You needed my help. I was able to. I couldn't well do anything else, could I?"
"WEWEREGONNADIIIIIIIIIE!-" Shrieked a dark haired missile as it wrapped its arms around Black and Stout's middles. The tiny destroyer escort looked up at them both with huge teary eyes. Her flanks ran red and mixed with the crashing waves.
"Oh, c'mere sweetie…" Stout crooned, hefting Blakeley into her arms and receiving the mother of all cuddles from the adorable, round-faced little escort. "It's gonna be fine. You're tougher than you think, than you look, and I've got your back."
Fast and Ready
(to meet the Admiral!)
Her boots hit the beach, soles crunching up soft yellow sand as her rigging faded away and disappeared. Every step she took shook the earth with a steelythump, packing the sand beneath her feet. Blakeley rested in her arms, her DC teams working overtime to make good her damages. In her embrace, the escort looked even smaller than normal. Her fatigues were starting to pick up a red-black stain that worried the big destroyer.
"So, two questions." Stout began, head twitching left and right as her radar and optics lost their collective minds at the clutter that was Virginia Beach.
"Shoot!" Black said, taking her by the arm and leading her up the dunes.
"Why aren't we pulling into the NOB?" Stout asked, referring to Norfolk-Oceana Base. The Fletcher shrugged her thin shoulders, twitching away her own rigging.
"Well, the harbor's nasty! So much oil and yuck everywhere! The scrubmarines were starting to complain about stains on their swimsuits, and, I mean, yeah, I thought it was mucking up my props' shine! So they moved us over here!" she chirped brightly, waving her arms expansively as they crested a dune.
Beyond the beach was rather…a luxurious set of staff housing sidled up inside Naval Station Dam Neck. Beautiful (and pricy) houses were formed into a neighborhood for the families of The Brass of the Atlantic Fleet.
Stout whistled lowly. "I've only ever seen these through my optical sight system." she muttered. "Or, well, I haven't, my crew has, but-"
"I get it!" Black said, face scrunched up in a broad, eye-touching smile. "We're all amalgams of our crews' experiences, bound up into an entirely new personality! So, we all have moments like that. You should see how some of the World War Two ships interact with the German and Japanese ships - you'd think the war hadn't ended yet! Then two minutes later they'll be giggling over tea or coffee!"
"Oh, joy." Stout mumbled, rolling her eyes. "So you're saying, once I walk in there, I'm walkin' into the World War Redux International Reenactment Club."
"Noooo," Black said, waving her hands frantically. "Well, I mean, as long as you don't wander across Wales and Bissy at it again…"
Stout laughed, and Blakeley squirmed sleepily as the motion disturbed her rest. She quickly stopped laughing, concern flitting across her face.
"Second and more serious question - what do we do about..?" she asked, lifting the little escort slightly to emphasize who and what she was talking about.
"Oh! We take her to the docks." Black said, as if that explained everything.
Stout's eyes flickered over to the sailing marina, and her eyebrow raised again. "Over there?"
Black followed her gaze and shook her head. "I mean, we could, but she might float away! No, we've got our own docks. C'mon!" The hyperactive destroyer grabbed Stout's sleeve again and hauled her bodily. Her steps didn't make the earth quake, much to Stout's annoyance. But, still, she geared her turbines to full power and loped along with her diminutive ancestor-ship, making good time to the gate. Two armed sentries saw the ship spirits and waved them through, raising the barrier for them to pass at a very respectable twenty five knots. Stout left a trail of cracked pavement in her wake, and she finally just had to shut off her radar because it was starting to give her a headache - and whiplash.
They pulled up to a stately and ornate house, all red brick and marble pillars, and dashed around the side. A pair of wide French doors stood open, steam wafting out from within. Black slowed her run, and Stout slowed with her as they entered.
Inside, a massive - and verywarm - pool sank into the ground, deep enough that even a submarine would feel happy in it. It couldn'thave been part of the original design. The walls were black marble up to waist-height, with yellow gold inlay at the dividing mark between the dark stone and the rough, darkly blue rock that rose the rest of the way to the ceiling. Another doorway lead to a set of stairs that clearly went to the actual first story of the house.
"This is our dock!" Black exclaimed cheerfully, already stripping off her cut-off dress blue jumper. The flying fabric hit the floor at the same time her bellbottoms did, and she took a running leap off into the steaming saltwater. Stout's eyes followed her trajectory with pointed interest.
Well, at least I know where I got my legs from.
The little Fletcher surfaced a moment later, floating on her back with a contented sigh. One brown doe-eye cracked open and looked back at Stout, and she smiled. "Just lower her in - gently! - and she'll do the rest! You should give it a try too! It's sooo relaxing!"
Stout blinked and made a confused noise, before sighing. "Sure… makes as much sense as anything else now, I guess! Just let me-" she said, before her stomach rudely interrupted her, and her CHENG voiced her very vocal complaint at the state of her fuel reserves. WEAPS joined in a moment later, nagging her about ammunition stores. And, just for funsies, SUPPO happily informed her that her crew was annoyed by the lack of provisions in her stores. "Eh, sorry!" she said. She realized, then, what hunger was. And she was starving.
"Oh! There's a kitchen upstairs! Some of the Admiral's staff work there and they make amazing food!" Black said, righting herself and floating over to the side. "Why don't you go tank up while I get Blake changed into her swimsuit? Feel free to join us after~" she ended with a playful lilt.
"Food. Food is good." Stout agreed. Black pushed herself out of the pool, having apparently worn her swimsuit under her blues, and took Blakeley's sleeping form in her arms.
"Off ya go! Try the biscuits n' gravy! Oh! And CS1's waffles are to die for!"
Stout waved for about half a second before her various department heads demanded her attention once more, and she fled up the stairs, each of which creaked and groaned under her advance.
The smell of food, glorious food! sent her mouth to watering before she even saw the kitchen, and she homed in on the smell like a Harpoon on an enemy radar. She burst into the kitchen and saw two cooks working away, preparing the mountains of food required to sustain a fleet of shipgirls. Stout drew in a squeaky breath, eyes wide.
"Ohmygoditalllookssodeliciousssss!" she squealed.
The taller of the two cooks was, in fact, a Chief, and he chuckled good naturedly without even turning around. He picked up a rag on the counter next to him and wiped the sweat off his dark brown skin. "How's it goin' kiddo? You new?"
"Yeah!" Stout all but shouted. "How'd you know?"
"Heard you comin' up the stairs, for starters. Also, seems like all the girls have that reaction to their first meal that ain't bunker oil." He pulled a burger patty as big as Stout's head off the grill - an actual, honest-to-goodness charcoal grill, fan above it sucking out the vapors and shunting them outside as flames licked sizzling meat.
Stout's eyes were as wide as dinner plates as she watched him put the massive burger on an equally massive, freshly-baked bun that all but glowed from the butter he'd brushed onto it. He turned around, and his face was kindly, a wry grin on his lips. "You've gotta be starvin'. Hell, this was for Wales, but I figure I can make another. It's just about the only single food item I've found that I can feed a battleship on with less'n a dozen of. You like onions?"
"I… I dunno? I've never had them…" the destroyer said, unable to tear her eyes away from the food.
"Well, we're about to fix that." he said. "I'm gonna do this up my way, aight? Gimme a minute, grab y'self a plate off the counter over there, and bug CS1 for some of his tater tots. 'Less you think you're more a brunch person, of course, in which case he's got french toast sticks today."
Stout nodded vigorously and scurried over to the side, looking over the assembled plates. One caught her eye in particular, and she hefted it, before speeding back to the Chief's side. He looked up from putting the finishing touches on her burger, his eyebrow rising.
"Kiddo, y'know that's a serving platter, right?"
"No I didn't! But, I do know that I'm starving..!" Stout pouted, her stomach growling uproariously to drive home her point and add punctuation to her words.
"Aight, aight! Here y'go. Chief's Special!" he said, chuckling and putting the mammoth construction of meat, cheese, bread and veggies on her plate. "Don't ever say I didn't do nothin' for ya. Hey, CS1! Get this girl a pile of your finest."
"On it." the burly Polynesian man grunted, walking over with a plate piled high with food. He pushed it off onto her platter; french toast, tater tots, fries - you name a side food, it seemed to be there. He turned about with surprising agility and plopped a bowl of hot syrup and a squeeze bottle of ketchup on her platter a moment later. "My rec is that you save the sticks for last. Rest of the kanmusu around here have a sweet tooth a mile long, but you might not be like that. Plus, you'll enjoy 'em more if they're the last thing, y'know?"
Stout beamed, and carefully maneuvered her tray onto the countertop, ignoring her stomach's calls for sustenance, and hugged the big man. "Sounds good! Thank you!" she said, before bouncing off of him and over to the Chief, wrapping him up too.
"Eeeeeasy there kid." the Chief said with a chuckle. "You're a lot stronger than you think you are."
"Sorry!" Stout squeaked, blushing furiously and letting him go.
He rubbed his side, but didn't stop smiling. "Ah, it's nothin' worth worryin' about. I've got a couple daughters of my own - ain't nothin' I've not had happen before."
And like that, the destroyer was back to beaming gratitude.
The Chief picked up an altogether more sanely sized portion of food, and beckoned to her. "C'mon, grab your grub, I was just about to bring the Admiral his lunch anyway. Figure I'll introduce you."
Stout picked up her platter and followed the Chief down the hall and into an elevator. A minute later, they were standing outside the Admiral's door.
RADM J. CHEATHAM, USN
Stout's breath caught in her throat.
The Chief knocked on the door, and a baritone "Enter!" sounded from within. He pushed the door open. "Mornin', Admiral! How's your day goin'?"
The man behind the desk was stocky, powerfully built, and maybe a shade lighter in skin tone than the Chief. He had a kindly face, but memories of Movie Nights on her mess decks long past wanted to pair him with a man named Morpheus. All he needed was sunglasses.
Which Stout knew he had.
"Oh, it goes, Chief. I've got Wales and her escorts on their way back from smashing an Abyssal foothold in Bermuda, so it's going pretty good, I think. Haven't heard back from Convoy 616 yet, though. I'm a little worried."
"Well, I've got somethin' here that might help with that. It's my favorite day of the week."
"Oh hell, is it Wednesday already?" The Admiral said, blinking.
"Yessir! And that means burgers."
"Oh, thank God. I didn't eat this morning. You, Chief, are a lifesaver."
"That's my job, sir, but don't go 'round thankin' me just yet. Got a new girl here with me." he said, finally moving out of the way of the door enough for the Admiral to see Stout standing there wide-eyed.
The Admiral smiled. "Well, come on in! Did you just get summoned?"
Stout nodded mechanically, seemingly unable to find her voice. The Admiral grinned, and gestured to the chair on the other side of his sizeable desk. "Well, go ahead, let's eat and we'll get to know each other. We're gonna be working together quite a lot."
Stout found her voice then. "Sir, I believe we already have."
His eyebrow quirked. "Oh? I don't think I've seen you around before…"
She shook her head. "No, sir… when I last knew you, you were my Captain."
"Please welcome the only modern USN shipgirl, USS Stout, DDG-55, Burke class!" -Shadow, Space Battles Forum
-"Before any of ya'll get any ideas, I'm only letting Omake writers write modern boats if they're actually on said current boat at the time.
That said... holyfuckstout'scute." -TheJUMper, also from the Space Battles Forum-
Uploader's Note: Damn. How about that? I've been dying to release this one. So, I think this is canon? I had to jump up from my chair and squeal like a little girl for a minute. Personal story, I met a rather high ranking Naval officer (Retired) in DC during my...hospitalization. I, an Army punk, started talking about how much I appreciate the Freedom and firepower that an Arleigh Burke gives. Well, he shook my hand and introduced himself as one of the head designers of the whole Burke Platform!
Well, I can put that side story there because it's at the bottom of this all. Do you guys even read these? ;)
Caboose out!
