Archerfish Ch. 13

16:30 hours (UTC +10), 34°44'58.4"N 152°50'20.9"E

Day +5

"You will sink. Again and again. Until there's nothing left", the Abyssal Princess said.

あなたは沈むでしょう何回も何回も何もなくなるまで

Y'know those movies where the guy starts to change into a monster, and everyone just stands around transfixed, watching it happen, until the guy turns into the werewolf/vampire/alien/Hulk? Yeah, that's not what happened here.

Several things did happen though, pretty much all at once.

Someone started shouting; I never did figure out who.

Michele and I flushed our tubes. Eight torpedoes hit the water.

Kaylee turned and fired a full salvo.

Nicole surfaced behind the Spider Princess, and fired four more torpedoes right into her butt.

My Link 11 registered incoming – a LARGE contact group. I spared a glance skyward and saw a huge, full-sized cargo plane, with full-sized F-15 escorts, coming right over us. Then I noticed the mushroom-shapes trailing the plane, and I realized I was looking at parachutes. They were dropping paratroopers?

Then everything hit the Abyssal, and my attention returned to her. I lost sight of her in the resultant fireballs. The flames and smoke rolled high and wide, and when it collapsed again, there was . . . nothing. She was just . . . gone.

I turned my attention back to the paratroopers. Several of them were hitting the water now, cutting away their chutes, and then standing up and straightening their gear. In my pain-addled brain, I was dismayed, thinking that we would have more enemies to fight, and couldn't figure out how many munitions I had left.

But then one of the women came closer, and although she was wearing black and red, it wasn't the same black and red, so I relaxed a little. She had long white hair, held with a red headband. She wore a white kimono shirt with red trim, under a black bustier, and a red miniskirt. She had guns around her hip rigging, guns at the tops of her thigh-high stockings, and high heeled red and gray boots that were too weird to describe. She had a long flight deck strapped over her right shoulder, and carried a Yumi bow in her left hand.

She walked past us, entirely serene, and approached Essex and Iowa.

"Essex-san?" she put her hands together and bowed. "I am Carrier Shoukaku, leader of Shoukaku task force from Yokosuka. Your, what is the word, cavalry is here."

"I guess that's better than 'I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you'", Michele muttered to me.

"Good to see you, Shoukaku", Essex said. "We can certainly use the help." She looked past the new arrival, out to the rest of the women who were cutting chutes and firing at the few Abyssals who had mended enough to try to stand. "How many are you?"

"We are seventeen. Mostly destroyers, but Zuikaku is here is well, as are Nagato and New Jersey."

"Jersey?!" interjected Iowa. "When did she join the Airborne?"

" 'Bout two hours ago!" said another woman, coming up to us. She wore the slate-grey suit jacket and pants that had become so familiar, and her rigging was nearly identical to Iowa's. As she passed us, I could read "BB-62" on her shoulder boards. "Didn't even send us to Boot Camp. They just strapped parachutes to our backs and shoved us in a C-17."

Iowa reached out her hand, and as New Jersey took it, she pulled her into an embrace.

"It's good to see you, sis."

Shoukaku turned back to Essex. "We are prepared for combat. Where are we needed?"

Bri came forward into our group. "Miss Shoukaku? I am Bri, um, USS Blue Ridge, an amphibious command ship." She paused for a moment, winced, then continued, breathing heavily between phrases. "I have contact information on all of the Abyssals for you. Most of them are down, or your team is engaging. There is a small cluster there, to the northeast, that seems to be healed, and inbound. Six destroyers, a light cruiser, and a carrier."

"That sounds like the ones we took out, minus the subs." I said to Michele, as we moved closer.

"Indeed?" Shoukaku inquired. "That was commendable." She took a piercing look at me, and then spoke into her radio. Most of it was rapid Japanese, but then she changed to English, and said "Rigel, Briareus, Akashi: we have need of you here. Please make haste."

She smiled at Michele and me, and said "You must be Archerfish; the one causing all this fuss."

"I certainly don't mean to, Ma'am."

"Fuss does follow you, though," said Michele, still holding on to me. Before I could respond to her, though, she turned to the carrier and asked "Pardon me, Ma'am, but how did you get here? How did you even know where 'here' is, and that we needed help?"

Shoukaku smiled, and put her hand lightly on Bri's shoulder. "Your Blue Ridge here", she said. "She has been transmitting information and coordinates to all of you, neh? Do you imagine that travels only to you? The Admiralty has been following your activities through Link 14, ever since she went active." She shrugged gracefully. "Commodore Ngaio was concerned when you entered combat. He briefed the staff, and Admiral Weaver was adamant that you required assistance. We had no idea how formidable you would turn out to be, of course." She smiled again. "Admiral Weaver called the Yokota Air base for the cargo plane, and it met us at Yokosuka. We used their transit time to watch a short film on jumping from an airplane. It was incredibly informative."

New Jersey snorted. Shoukaku continued. "The Admiral chose the best craft that could hold all of us, and get us here as rapidly as possible. She also called Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, and the F-15s met us in the air. They came to provide support, in case there could be trouble."

Just then, three more women came up to us. Two were clad in slate-grey, and the third was sporting the "Navy School-Girl" look. She had pink hair tied in two short ponytails with red ribbons, and her mini-skirt and neckerchief were both navy blue. Her white shirt had navy blue trim at the sleeves, and a red bow at the front. She was wearing a gray, long-sleeved turtleneck underneath, and her rigging seemed to consist mostly of cranes, armor plating, and a single gun. She held a bunch of blue scrolls in her left hand, more in the crook of her left elbow, and in her right hand was a wrench. The other two women had very similar rigging: cranes, antennae, and very few weapons. One had curly black hair, and wore a welding mask, flipped up. Her shoulder boards read "AR-12". The other woman, "AR-11", had blue hair and carried a rivet gun.

The one with the rivet gun spoke. "Rigel, Briareus, and Akashi, reporting as ordered Ma'am!" She turned to look at the rest of us. "Oh, goodness gracious! What happened to you?"

"Combat" replied Essex, drily. The woman started toward Essex who waved her off. "I'll be okay, just a little singed. See to the boy, he's probably the worst."

I didn't even have time to squawk with indignation at being called "The Boy" before she descended on me. "Archerfish. . . Archerfish . . . AhHA!" she cried, sorting through her scrolls and holding one up in triumph. She looked at me, and then unrolled it against my chest. I realized it was a blueprint. MY blueprint. That felt a little weird, actually. And unnerving, seeing how I was put together. I felt kind of . . . exposed. Vulnerable. Her cranes unfolded from her back, reminding me of nothing so much as Mechadendrites from 40K (Praise the Omnissiah!)

I vaguely heard the pink-haired woman exclaiming over Bri: "Oh, dear! Oh, my! You have cracked structural ribs, did you know that? Let me see what I can do for you. Let me talk to your Fairies."

The blue-haired woman spoke again, recapturing my attention. "You have holes in your pressure hull! There is major structural damage, and your main screw is bent!" She glared at me. "How are you still afloat?"

"Adrenaline, mostly. Adrenaline and Michele. And it's starting to fade." Ow.

"Well, here. Let's start with this," she said. And then she did something, and darkness claimed me.

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