Haze Gray 18
Danny read the note, as was usual, checked the mess deck, as was usual, sat down and opened the paper. The Master Chief sat at his table on top of the breakfast table, as was usual and they got breakfast, coffee and the news. The small TV on the pie safe set to Good Morning Brockton on channel five.
When the news portion came on Danny lowered the paper he was reading one handed and watched the segment about the gang activity over night. Then he looked in the paper and found a small article buried on page five. "Huh, suspected to be the supervillain Coil and Kaiser led gangs in a territory dispute? Yeah, OK. Sure.
"All right Chief I got to go to work, want a ride to the dock for you and the gang?"
"Hey"
Danny listened to the Bosuns pipe then the announcement and watched the formations come together then march off to the pickup. It was a lot of guys, a bed full, like a LCVP assaulting a beach. Packed in so tight they couldn't fall down.
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Kaiser having watched the same report picked up the phone.
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Coil cut off the timelines, gave some orders and started two more. That hadn't worked out quite like he planned but the results were similar. And one set were useable. Now what were the ships up to? He winced and started two more timelines; he wasn't going to find out that way. Time to do it the old-fashioned way. He surfed to Good Morning Brockton.
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Lung rolled over. No civilized person got up this early, stayed up this late certainly, got up this early, no.
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Taylor arched a brow at the crowd after she and Leslie were passed around like party favors, then chuckled at Amy's fierce scowl over the same treatment.
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Danny walked in the dock and blinked at Lisa padding past in her wet suit. Tess chuckled "She's out of the dock, we're counting it as a victory."
Danny nodded "Did that cup, and I use the term loosely, have wheels at one time? Are you girls stronger? I mean she was carrying what three hundred pounds of coffee? I mean thirty-five-gallon drum so." Tess rolled her eyes, Danny pushed on "So, saw a blurb about the Empire and Coil in the paper?"
Tess nodded "No idea what that really was. A lot of factors in play. Plus, that snake is a slippery devil. Lisa will unknot it for us after her coffee."
Danny nodded "And today?"
Tess smiled "I get to finish the designs!"
"And the cost of these carbon fiber structural components?" Danny asked.
Lisa stepped over "As we have the refinery, that chemical factory part of it, and some extruding equipment, plus tool and die makers, looms all the machines necessary even, who knew the navy still needed sails? We will get them for nothing but labor and after we prove them and sell them they'll make money. Same thing with the resins. Kevlar is going to be the only cost and that won't be too high as we are going to get a license for it for cheap. They need a manufacturing facility on the east coast. It will ease their transportation cost problem." She grinned.
Danny and Tess looked at each other "Can they put a submarine in jail?" Danny asked. Tess chuckled; Lisa pouted. "So, what went on last night?"
Lisa shrugged "The Empire blowing off steam. I had Aisha plant a seed. It took root. Now we just have to wait to see if it blooms and we get all three of the gangs in a war. Likelihood is high. Advantage to us is it keeps the military around, though possibly not at the current levels. It keeps the alphabets in play as well, and the idiots might take care of each other, or reduce their individual capacities enough that the PRT and Protectorate does their job.
"Not blaming them." She put her hands up palm out "The Empire was already too much for them by the time they stood up here. Then Lung showed up, and last Coil."
Danny nodded "All Father was no joke, and Iron Rain, her panties were in a permanent twist. It got bad. After she got whacked, however that happened, and Lustrum got taken in, it got slightly better.
"Especially after Kaiser had his fit and ran the Teeth and the Nine off. Built the reputation he rides around on to today. I think he just didn't give a crap anymore. Tough to kill a guy who doesn't care if he dies, and then, blades everywhere.
"Everybody forgets the Marquis was here too."
"Off course by then intermodal freight was killing us. Which as a result the riots, and the idiots, whoever they were, scuttling those boats, which have all disappeared now?"
Lisa sighed "I know. Now I have to buy all this stuff the yard uses. Good thing for plastic boats. Leets worms, and the refinery. Iron sand, who knew?
"We have to get a store up and running in another building too, we need the space it's in for the fiber reinforced section of the boatwrights and the engine shop.
"These plans for these engines came from Squealer?" Lisa looked at Tess.
"Us all maybe, the tinkers and Uber as well. It was an GM electro-motive division base design, pancake motors they called them. then compressed graphite iron, some pretty exotic alloys, and the generator not under it so any leaks won't run into it, direct drive rather than diesel electric to save weight again, no electric motors, and we got the power higher and the weight lower than the Packard's, plus only two of them, still gives us more power than three Packard's that saved weight went into generators, fuel system, and everything else. Oh, the generator is a sixty KW job and can drive the boats in limp mode using a hydraulic motor. Everything feeds one transmission which drives the pump jets. Each engine has a generator too for all up combat. The system eats like a hundred fifty kilowatts, all up.
"We didn't save much weight in the hull, some, thirty percent, but not as much as we hoped. Forty percent was the theoretical max savings, but they are going to get shot at so we erred on the side of caution. It is theoretically an order of magnitude, or several really, stronger. Eleven to seven times as strong as aluminum. Interestingly there are some studies that say the composites will be better than aluminum or steel, less shock on equipment in rough seas and things like that. We will save weight on the weapons though, we are building our own, thirty-millimeter, sort of mark forty four dual purpose Composite gun houses. Plus, mark forty-six torpedoes. Rather than mark thirteens.
"Still three thousand gallons of fuel should now last thirty-six hours not twelve. Running one engine takes that out to six days. Still fast enough to be on plane even on just one. They can patrol on one and then start the other for combat.
"We are working on something like a mark five missile launcher, but it will handle stinger or another type of AA missile as well as five-inch rockets. Two per, eight cells each.
"We had considered hydrofoils but then looked at the results from the navies that built them, they just don't work out in the real world. Especially with all the stuff in the oceans nowadays. If you hit something with a foil, even if you build it to fold on impact, it can cartwheel a boat or cause it to submarine."
Danny nodded "So, a building for a store, warehouse as well as it does internet sales. By the water with slips for demo boats? The gigs aren't the only boats people were interested in. Shipping and receiving people for it. Other than that, hopefully a turn toward normalcy until we build, what? Two dozen PT boats, and Rachel. OK."
They all looked at each other and blinked. Then chuckled. It was Brockton Bay.
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Emily was smirking inside too, the intel analyst, non PRT, had an eighteen-page summary of the incident and what the likely causes and ramifications of it were. She had been pleasantly surprised however to have a Marine three star and his staff take the ball and ask that all information be routed through them with cc's to all other agencies. And then call a meeting for just before lunch. That nicely diverted the alphabet soup to someone else. Except for Agent Mulder. Damn woman. Entirely too smart. Her boy Sculley too. Man was an eccentric genius. As long as you let him have his 'its aliens' blurb though... genius.
So, she could get set to help the rest of the executive branch out when the gangs got adjusted to each other and maybe, just maybe, get this crazy town back in control. Or in control for the first time really.
She smiled as the Civil Affairs Colonel handled the Mayor and Governors reps. These people were good, all that practice in the Balkans and near east probably.
The PAO as well, the only thing that interfered with the image she was portraying was the four ships in the Bay morning and evening and she was even working them into the rap.
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Dennis leaned over to Dean "What's up with them?"
Dean blinked "Who?"
"The girls, they are all smiling and relaxed."
Carlos leaned in between them "Nothing crazy is going on? They are happy?" The other two boys looked at him, shook their heads and went back to watching the girls. Carlos sighed.
Taylor looked at Leslie "Oh crap, you can't stay on the squad!"
"What? Nah, I don't fly, sorry Vicky."
Vicky shrugged "The price one pays" She tilted her nose up.
Susan Chandler scowled darkly "Cost me my best forward." Taylor listened interestedly as the conversation heated up and went round and round.
After that issue had been dissected, the ways the adults messed it up enumerated, and the better plan agreed, Amy looked at Taylor "Hospital after school, I got a text."
Taylor opened her mouth and apparently said "I got a doctor too." She looked cross eyed at her mouth or tried to. The girls all giggled. Leslie blushed "Sorry."
Taylor shrugged and smiled "Sure why not. Uber and Leet are in Gitmo. Nobody else that stupid in town, right?"
She blinked at the 'Wait! What! Gitmo's!' from the crowd. Then looked around "Oops?"
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"So, as reported on Parahumans Online, the source being Kanmusu Brockton Bay, the villains Uber and Leet have in fact been declared enemy combatants and placed in Camp Xray at Guantanamo Bay Cuba after their extraordinary rendition from the territorial waters of the United States?" Christine arched a brow.
The State Department spokesperson sighed "I thought you were covering the Pentagon Christine? Get around, do you?" She smiled tightly at Christine who glared "Yes, after they attacked the citizens and territory of the United States with military grade weapons and acting as the agents of a foreign power, there was little choice but to charge them as enemy combatants.
"None of this has been hidden, and since their interrogation is finished, charges are being filed, their appointed legal counsel is aware. I would refer you to the Justice department for a list of charges."
Christine didn't sit down "And the parahumans Squealer and Skidmark?"
"As you appear to already know Christine, apprehended in the territorial waters of the United States, not identified as agents of a foreign power, however as parahumans, high rated ones, Squealer has been moved to Camp Xray as it is one of the few places that can hold a tinker of her caliber, or Leets, specially constructed by Dragon of the Guild at the behest of the US government, pending her trial. It was deemed appropriate to separate her from the man who forcibly addicted her to drugs when she was a minor child.
"The parahuman Skidmark is being held at the ADX Florence. He is facing a sentence in Bauman correctional, colloquially known as the 'Birdcage', if convicted of the hundreds of murder charges being brought by five different states against him."
The normally staid State Department press briefing room exploded in noise
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Amy looked at Taylor "Stop exploding seagulls and call a car, we are going to the dock. Somebody had the bright idea to test the theories the researchers have and took my patients there and are floating them in the dock."
"Look like Graces."
"Did you ever even shoot at B7A torpedo bombers?"
"Ju 87s"
"You were in the other ocean."
"Mails"
"BE-12? OK, especially that fat-" BAM "Taylor!"
"What? You saw it!"
"Problem Miss?" A man in black asked.
Taylor shook her head and blushed a little. Amy crossed her arms under her bunkerage and gave her an arched brow and a look, then a huff. Taylor was never so glad to see an antique car. they got in the back. After a moment she looked around "Where did that guy come from?" Amy wanted to be mad, really, she did. Instead she collapsed on the bench seat in the back of the staff car and howled with laughter. Taylor pouting and grouching "One shotted the bastard with a forty too." Was too much.
"Stop I'm going to pee!"
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They came in the door of the dock with Amy wiping her eyes and Taylor leading her by an elbow and Taylor stopped moving. "What." Amy got her eyes wiped and looked around "What in the world?"
Mouse Protector appeared "Well all these Asian girls showed up in Empire territory, then the white and brown girls showed up in ABB territory, and well, it's kind of been a thing? Half of them don't speak English at all. Best we can figure is the Asian ones are girls the ABB was trafficking, the white and brown ones are girls the Empire was trafficking, and they are clearing the decks. We think they sent them to each other's territory with instructions to find the nearest cop and turn themselves in and blame whoever's territory they were in. The FBI thinks that means some cops are dirty, how would the Empire know they were being blamed otherwise?
"Any who, they were all starved and dehydrated so somebody got the idea to bring them here and Lisa figured out how to charge Medicaid? The minerals, vitamins, of which some are acids? Did you know that? Anyway, and metals in the water going into them, one of the researches figured out how to measure that as the medics had already sampled the girls, and in a few minutes, we are going to sample them again so Lisa is working the charges for that as well.
"Hoped you would look at them for us? We got people to write down the results, and you can fix them up and bill uh, well, Lisa will know. By the way SIX OF THEM!" She ducked at the sharp whistle and then hid behind Taylor.
Battery who had walked up sighed "Did you get all that?" The two ships, girls, nodded dumbly and started toward the base hospital.
On the way there Taylor blinked "Where are they going to sleep?"
Battery shrugged "We leased a berthing barge."
Taylor blinked again "Lisa!"
"Coming Boss!"
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Amy and Taylor sat on the surface of the dock. Leslie had joined them. Lisa was running around somewhere and Tess was doing something with the researchers involving lots of pointing and some tapping of screens.
The dump trucks had now been replaced with conveyors that moved along the refinery, chemical works, powder mill, side of the dock in arcs, cantilevered out over the water, except where the train tracks were. Which were now a constant stream of cars with an engine in the stream occasionally? Amy shrugged "I got coffin racks, I can treat patients there, they will be fine in the coffin racks on the barge."
Taylor sighed, "Probably but, you know, I think I am going to go shoot Kaiser and Lung in the dick."
Leslie looked up with red glowing eyes from the garden of children and dogs she was in. "Yep. Soon as we get the girls settled."
Taylor and Amy looked back and the matching red glow faded from their eyes as they went face down in the dock.
Lisa looked across the end of the dock with her red glowing eyes and nodded to Tess who's red glowing eyes were backing the researchers around her up. Danny looked down in the dock in time to see two dozen pairs of red glowing eyes lift and hear the howl rise and then cut off. He watched as the dogs settled surrounding the girls. 'Hey' "Yeah Chief. Maybe the angriest I have seen her." He watched the twin red beams sweep back and forth over the dock full of dogs and girls from Leslie's eyes.
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Emily looked at the body camera footage "Well, this may be a problem." Her phone rang and she blinked at the caller ID 'Malia Obama' She nodded and picked it up "Mr. President."
"They told me you were a smart one. In about ten minutes from what I was told Legend should be there. He will be followed by Alexandria and Eidolon. You are going to arrest Lung, Kaiser, and Coil. I want them on an island I'm going to send you the coordinates for by in the morning. If they live through that we will see what charges we can arrange."
Emily grinned from ear to ear "You're sending them to Bikini. Well, you've got my vote again Sir."
"Get it done Emily, and thank you for your confidence in me and service to the country."
Emily hung up the phone "Muhahahahahahaha!" Of course at that moment her admin assistant opened the door and Legend glided to a stop looking at her.
Later, Emily frowned "You doubt my Directorates and the local Protectorates ability to handle these other parahumans?"
Alexandria opened her mouth but Glenn Chambers cut her off "Nope. I doubt your ability to stop five, maybe seven Kanmusu, one of whom is pretty sure to be armed with nuclear weapons, that while they might not work thanks to Goldie, might because we have smart boys and girls working on the problem.
"Oh, and however many wake up from the red glowing bathtub with guns all over their bodies. Might have just gotten a fleet. Anyway it would be a blow the PRT could never recover from if Taylor tupacs all three of them in the street.
"I'm sure it will occur to her that they didn't do this alone. So, there are some more we need to round up while we have the instruments in place.
"Then Emily, and you will be glad you got that tune up, you are going to get to deal with the teeth, maybe the nine, Accord probably, and whatever other rabble decides to show up.
"Meanwhile we get rid of several problems and find out what exactly the Simurgh is doing besides being the absolute hottest jelly fish princess ever."
Emily narrowed her eyes. "Bikini is radioactive, how are you going to deal with the blowback of putting all these people on a radioactive island?"
"Kwajalein, big US defense installation." He fiddled with her screen, as he was wont to do, and a picture of clouds, no a fog bank, appeared. Emily arched a brow. Glenn continued "Either she got her brother, sister? one of her relatives to help her or she made a fog bank and weather area as in Kancolle. This is taken from a web camera on Kwajelain. Where the Navy maintains several disused ships, which will be ready to go in four or five more hours.
"Our volunteer parahumans, at great risk to themselves, are going to investigate what is happening at Bikini."
Emily shrugged "I'm going to get them there like the boss told me to. How you set this up to explode in your face is up to you."
Glenn grinned "If they win, we'll give them materials and they can build shelter and then we will drag them out for Endbringer battles.
"Win win for you as it clears out your riff raff"
"I will be assisting them." Everyone turned to Eidolon. Legend nodded "Could you give us a minute please?" Emily and Glenn moved with alacrity,
As soon as the door shut Rebecca asked "Are you drunk?" Flatly.
David shook his head "They might distract her, I can protect myself from the radiation, them too. I like the chances of this succeeding. Well not for them but I don't see a way for me to lose. Even if she leaves back to orbit, it's a battle 'won'
Rebecca turned to Paul "And."
"Is this what you want David? What you really, really want?"
"Yes."
"OK let's do this."
Coil ended both timelines, which had been the same in the particulars if not the details, and face palmed "Wut?"
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Emily watched the body cam footage and sighed "This is going to be a problem." Paul Rennick snorted. She glared at him "Get the general on the phone Paul, let's get everyone over there and try to have a briefing ready to go so we can talk COMKANMUSU out of tupacing those two fuckheads."
"Is that what you want Emily? What you really really want?"
"What are you, a Spice Girl? No, but otherwise I'm going to get a phone call from Malia Obama and we are going to have to do something bizarre I have a feeling. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if McCain won? I think I just had a daymare of it. Fuck, I need a drink."
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"He isn't going to help Krouse. That dock might help."
Krouse looked around "And what am I supposed to do Noelle? How do I get you in there?"
Noelle blinked "The Berthing barge. I bet they move it in the dock. To do that they have to pull the caisson. I can either hang onto the barge, or, if its shallow enough, walk into the dock behind it."
Krouse nodded "I'll get the team, we'll get a truck."
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"It's afloat Charlie pull it out." Danny said into the radio. "Kurt get the berthing barge moving, this coffer damn might not hold." He glared around at the expressions of discontent and everyone shut up. He might not have red eyes but you could see where Taylor got that temper. The only reason he was doing this was the fact that if the worst happened they were just down some minerals. Oh! "Juan, how you coming?"
"Pulling off the freeway now Danny, we got everything. Pretty sure no one will complain. That ag products guy might if he doesn't get paid though."
Lisa scowled "Don't let him bullshit you, the money is in his account already. I got a screen shot of his bank records. How are we going to powder this stuff?"
'Hey, hey hey hey.' Lisa looked at the Yard Manager "Just dump it where we are told. Fine."
Danny looked at the water lapping at the top of the dock and counted girls and dogs again. They had everyone on the top big steps or over them so they wouldn't sink far anyway. A hundred work and crash boats, and ten tugs, was that a seaplane derrick? Anyway, the boats were all working damn hard on keeping them there. The young girls needed to get in bed though. They would get that barge in, put the caisson back, get the the plumbing, power, gas, and water hooked up then pump out its side. Then they could open the valves in the coffer dam and not lose any minerals or metals. Neat plan, if the coffer dam held. As soon as it was hooked up, they could get the girls settled.
Meanwhile the dogs were absorbing stuff from the refinery and chemical works as fast it could make it out of the crude left in the tank farm, nine separate six inch pipes and Lisa had rolls of Kevlar and carbon fiber weave and yarn coming in by boat, plane, and truck, which then disappeared into the dock. One six-inch pipe carrying navy special too.
Dwayne had already signed off on them using the scrap from the railyard all the way to the ballast. Spikes were low carbon but rail was pretty tough. Plus, it was good hundred fifty five pound a yard stuff from when Pennsy put it in and upgraded to heavy rail during the war. The tie bars and plates were spring steel. None of it Japanese, German, or even British either, all from Scranton and Bethlehem. Danny looked at Lisa. Captain Obvious wouldn't let them go to wrong, right?
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"All right Gary! Good job. Everything on the list? Helps clean the place up, Yes. OK, let me call the Army and get you some trucks. Oh, really? Faster by ship. Oh, OK, I see, it's on Long Island sound. Victory ships. They are already on the way, nice. These DWU fellas don't mess around. Heavy engineer companies. OK I can do that. I'll send them to your folks there Gary. And these chemicals? Tankers, your guys are on it.
"Seventy-five miles an hour easy. I got to see this. Those little dogs. All right, I'll let you go Gary. I have to talk to some other folks. What's that, SEALs, yes, I remember Gary. Got to let Delta have a shot too though. Seals got the last two."
Barack looked over to find Michelle looking at him "And Taylor tupacing them is a bad idea why?" Barack blinked, were her eyes red?