Small sparks flew from the neck of the Ta, as some of my welders sealed the gash in her neck. The monks were orderly, while many simply sat in silence, either watching or praying, a few at a time would get up and take a closer look. I had to warn a few through Lao not to look too closely at the welding torches. And when my girls were taking a break one or two had a dizzy spell from looking into the Ta's inner compartments.
"Don't worry, you get used to it," I said, as Mr. Chan steadied one of his friends, "My guess is looking into a ship-person messes with your sense of space or something, there's a full interior to a Battleship stuffed in here after all." I patted the Ta's leg for emphasis.
"Fascinating, and the little ones? Where do they come into all of this?" I grinned, before scooping up a couple of my squawking crew, holding them up to the men to see more closely.
"HEY! For fucks' sake warn us next time! What if we'd fallen off?!" One of them screeched at me, shaking her tiny nub-fist. So adorable, I'm gonna die... still.
"Don't embarrass me in front of the local clergy!" I stage whispered.
"You do that just fine by yourself!" Another girl responded. I started to redden in embarrassment.
"Why do they only repeat one word?" I looked at Mr. Chan in surprise.
"What do you mean?"
"They just keep repeating 'Hey' over and over again, are you hearing something different?" I nodded.
"Yeah, they're talking normally to me, we were just, umm, talking about... Construction things, and engineering. And stuff." He looked a little doubtful, but nodded regardless. I went to say something else but was interrupted by my 2nd shift Captain, who was currently occupying the Ta's command bridge.
"We've got the place aired out and cleaned, most of the equipment is fine, the good thing about old designs like this is there's less electronics to screw up from water damage." I nodded, before replying.
"Any idea what she is?"
"Well, most of the paperwork was waterlogged, but I have a pretty good guess." One of the monks had put up his hand, and one of my workers 'jumped ship' when he offered a small ball of rice. I pouted at her, she blew me a raspberry.
"I think she's a heavily modified Queen Elizabeth, almost couldn't recognize it. According to the blueprints in front of me, she was meant to have twenty-four Yarrow-type boilers, I contacted the girls poking around down in the engineering section, they said that she's got sixteen stacked Admiralty three-drum boilers instead, each one with a superheater." I stared blankly into space for a moment.
"So... She's got a lot of horsepower?" Lao and Chitose looked over at that.
"Hell yeah she does! If she was built to the original blueprint, she'd have about 75,000 shaft horsepower, with the new boilers and superheaters? 220,000." Holy crap that was a lot of power.
"What is it Georgia? You looked shocked for a second there." Chitose asked, coming down to sit next to me. I repeated what my Captain had told me. She put her hand to her mouth in mild shock "Wow! I only ever had 56,000 horsepower! I guess that's the difference between a Seaplane Tender and a Fast Battleship, I wonder how fast she can go?" I asked my Captain that very thing, as she was already slouched over the blueprints anyway.
"Well, between the Boiler and shaft upgrades, modifications to the hull and belt armor to reduce drag, and taking into account the displacement... Hold on let me get my calculator." I waited as I heard her shuffling around for a bit. "If she went full-blast on all boilers, she could theoretically reach... Jesus, about 36 knots." I relayed that to the others.
"I call bull-" Lao looked around at the current company, before lowering her voice, "I call bullshit, no one is that fast! Iowa isn't even that fast! And she's the fastest Battleship there is!" I shrugged.
"That's what the calculator said, I don't argue with math. Maybe she cant maintain it long? Going that fast as a hull that old would probably shake something loose pretty quick." Chitose piped up.
"So... What is she?"
"A really modded-out Queen Elizabeth-Class apparently, I guess Mae wasn't content just re-hashing the design and tried her hand at modernizing them to fit their old role better?" Chitose gasped as Lao got a look of confusion on her face.
"Who's Mae?" Oh yeah, she wouldn't know her by name, would she?
"The supply Depot Princess in Palawan, she sells a lot of the ships that end up around here apparently, she does good work if this is one of her designs." Lao opened her mouth soundlessly. doing a good fish impression.
"She sells them?" I nodded, "And you know her name... How?" She shook herself. "Spy, right, I gotta stop asking stupid questions."
All told, it took another thirty minutes to get the Battleship into good enough condition to try booting her up. I had to get help from Chitose, as the ship was absolutely friggen massive compared to any of us but Anne, and there was a lot of ground to cover. Lao retched a bit when Chitose's crew entered the Ta.
"Ewwwwwwww, thats sooo groooooosss!" Chitose continued with her work, though now with a massive blush as her engineering team entered the boiler room where my limited crew waited.
"Alright, guys!" I said loudly, "We're gonna start warming up the boilers now. It should take maybe an hour or two, so if you wanna take a break to go to the bathroom or something, now's the time!" Few of the surrounding monks moved as Lao translated for me (probably in more polite words) As I turned to Mr. Chan and asked, "So what's up with all the decorations anyway?" He gestured at the paper tags surrounding the salt-circle, I nodded.
"Simply a precaution, rituals, and offerings are said to create portals to the afterlife, the circle is to keep any spirits that escape contained until after you are finished, then once you've moved we will do the same ritual as before to cleanse the area." That was smart! I never would have thought of taking that kinda precaution, but...
I stepped over the salt-circle, quirking a brow at him, he simply smiled. "Not all spirits have a physical body as you do, this prevents the ones without." OK, he had me there.
...
"OK people look alive! Final startup is go!" The monks, having been praying or meditating or whatever it is they did, largely kept it up. Though a few of the younger ones perked up to look as the Ta-Class began to stir. My crew reported that Crew summoning was now underway, I put a chunk of steel I'd compressed and balled up into a mouth-sized chunk into the Ta's mouth, she slowly began to chew, and swallowed.
"She's, really alive, then?" I nodded to Mr. Chan as he knelt near me, I took another chunk of steel and fed it to the slowly awakening ship, to feed her crew summoning process. Finally, she opened her eyes, there was very little glow at first, as the bridge lights slowly came on, they seemed to be a steel grey color, a lot like...
"Hey, Chitose! she's got your eyes!" Chitose made a noise at that, kneeling beside me to take a closer look.
"S-She does, doesn't she?" Anne and Hakone, having stood back till now, crowded around the new ship.
"Hi! I'm Hakone! That's Anne! It's nice to have a new sister! I hope we can be friends." Hakone spouted rapidly, seeming to confuse the Battleship slightly, she opened her mouth as she sat up, the bedsheet that had covered her sloughing off.
"?'?, ? ? ﾝﾖﾈ? ﾝﾖﾚ? ﾝﾖﾑ? ﾝﾖﾞ ? ﾝﾖﾔ?'? ? ﾝﾖﾓ? ﾝﾖﾜ ? ﾝﾖﾍ? ? ? ﾝﾖﾒ, ? ? ﾝﾖﾊ? ﾝﾖﾑ... ? ﾝﾖﾍ? ﾝﾖﾓ? ﾝﾖﾘ ? ﾝﾖﾓ? ﾝﾖﾎ? ﾝﾖﾊ ? ﾝﾖﾊ, ? ﾝﾖﾘ ? ﾝﾖﾍ? ﾝﾖﾙ ? ﾝﾖﾔ? ? ﾝﾖﾍ? ? ﾝﾖﾗ? ? ﾝﾖﾔ?" She directed the last towards me. I cocked my head to the side.
"Chitose, what language is that?" She looked at me deadpan. "It almost sounds like American, but the words are all wrong!"
"She's speaking English, Georgia." I shook my head.
"I speak English Chitose, and what that is isn't English." She gave me the karate chop of justice over my head "OW!"
"? ﾝﾖﾑ? ﾝﾖﾆ? ﾝﾖﾊ, ? ﾝﾖﾊ? ﾝﾖﾑ ? ﾝﾖﾊ ? ﾝﾖﾍ? ﾝﾖﾗ? ? ? ﾝﾖﾒ! ?'? ? ﾝﾖﾔ ? ﾝﾖﾔ? ﾝﾖﾋ? ﾝﾖﾘ? ﾝﾖﾉ..." I squinted as I tried to parse the words, rubbing my head as I repeated them to myself.
"I think she said 'Please tell me where I am, I'm so confused.' Ah, right! Of course!" I offered the sitting girl my hand.
"Hi! I'm Georgia, I'm your fairy god-mom now I guess!" I pointed with my unoccupied thumb as I helped her to her feet, "That's Chitose, she's your other mum, and these two are your sisters, Hakone and Anne! The little one besides me is Lao, she's just here cause she likes to watch I guess." Lao squawked at that. "We just started you up, you're an Abyssal ship! Your Captain can fill you in on the specifics, but if you got any questions, feel free to ask."
She took my hand, and I was promptly pulled into the dirt as she tried to haul herself up. My god, this girl was strong! "?'? ? ﾝﾖﾔ? ﾝﾖﾗ? ? ﾝﾖﾎ? ﾝﾖﾘ ? ﾝﾖﾊ? ﾝﾖﾗ? ﾝﾖﾎ?!" I rolled back to my feet, dusting myself off.
"Don't worry about it! Anne, you mind helping your new sis out?" The woman nodded, and pulled the embarrassed Fast Battleship to her feet.
"W̵e̶l̶c̷o̴m̶e̷ ̷t̴o̷ ̴t̷h̷e̵ ̴f̵l̵e̷e̴t̵,̸ ̴y̸o̴u̴'̸l̶l̸ ̷l̴i̵k̷e̸ ̶i̶t̸ ̶h̸e̴r̶e̸,̴ ̴a̷n̴d̵ ̴y̶e̵s̸,̵ ̶m̴y̸ ̸v̷o̵i̴c̸e̸ ̸i̶s̸ ̴b̷a̵d̷,̶ ̷a̸n̵d̷ ̴y̶e̶s̷,̶ ̴I̵'̸m̴ ̵w̵o̶r̸k̷i̴n̸g̷ ̷o̶n̵ ̷i̴t̵." The Battleship nodded, a bit overwhelmed. Hakone came in from behind, wrapping her arms around the surprised ship.
"New ship hug!" Anne, already holding the Battleship's hand, joined in, not wanting to be left out, I joined shortly thereafter as I latched onto her lower leg. I made a 'come hither' motion to Chitose, who looked around at the surrounding gawkers before shaking her head, I pouted at her, repeating the motion. She sighed, and walked over to join the group hug.
I came away with a grin, before looking where I'd hugged her and frowning. "Well, first things first, you need some food in your gut ASAP, you must be absolutely starved! The Ta-class paused, as if mentally checking her holds, before wincing with a nod. I swept my arm to the large collection of scrap we'd collected. "Help yourself to any of this stuff the nice monks here helped put together for you, then we can see if we can get you some pants, young lady!"
The Ta blinked, looking down at her bare thighs and panties. "? ﾝﾖﾍ? ﾝﾖﾙ'? ? ﾝﾖﾗ? ﾝﾖﾓ? ? ﾝﾖﾎ? ﾝﾖﾍ ? ﾝﾖﾍ? ? ﾝﾖﾆ? ?'? ? ﾝﾖﾗ? ﾝﾖﾘ? ﾝﾖﾊ? ? ﾝﾖﾔ?"
I facepalmed "Not another one..."