Nashville sighed, filling another cup from the office's water cooler and downing it like badly-needed whisky. She wasn't that much of a drinker, at least compared to some rumors she'd heard, but given what she was preparing for, the Light Cruiser was doing everything she could to keep her nerves steady.

She wasn't in any real danger, but she'd spent days preparing for this. That was time she could have been out there, looking for the abyssal, and still she didn't feel like she was prepared for this! Studying the art of interrogation was one thing, but it was clearly something that needed practice to master, she was lacking that. Finding the needed patience alone was going to be a problem, but they didn't have any other option.

From watching Murray debriefing civilian's who'd encountered the abyssal, The Cruiser had no doubt that he'd be much better at the task… if he could actually understand what the captured pilots were saying. The same went for their civilian newcomers, as well.

That left Shangri La and herself, and between the two Nashville's 'experience' made her the better option. That being said, considering The Essex had a very similar design to Trinitite, there could be advantages to using her for interrogation. She'd have to float that suggestion to Murray if this didn't work out.

She sighed, hand resting on the entrance to the office's makeshift interrogation room. Considering how much success they'd had so far, Nashville was fairly sure they'd be going with that option.

Counterintuitive as it seemed, she'd devised a way to make the fairy talk.

Nashville could only hope that they'd work.

"She's starting now."

From her seat in the conference room, Shangri La pocketed her phone, looking up to projected video feed. They didn't have anything fancy like a room with those one-way windows, so instead they rigged a webcam to monitor their converted office, the device hooked up to Nashville's government-issue laptop. Watching the fed was the Lieutenant Commander and the law enforcement personnel (Katie Harmon had left for California the previous day), with herself acting as a translator. Both rooms were being recorded to ensure that Shangri La's translations could be matched to the fairy later, when the footage was inevitably reviewed. The setup wasn't ideal for a myriad of reasons, but considering the required secrecy they hadn't been able to figure out anything better.

As the light cruiser opened the door to the interrogation room, a tinny click emanating from the laptop's poor speakers, the fairy in the center of the feed abruptly sat up. They'd dropped the abyssal fairy off there an hour ago, and it was obvious the boredom had quickly overwhelmed her. They'd cleared the office out, leaving their captive only the unwieldy desk and webcam for company. Aboard Nashville, at least, the fairy had been interned with her comrade, allowing them each other's company. The tactic here seemed to have worked, as the fairy seemed almost happy to see her captor.

"She read about Scharff." Agent Fergeson noted, his voice even. The large man didn't seem that impressed, but the other two civilians seemed more so, nodding slowly.

"That's what the cake was for?" Shangri La asked. Both of her hands cradled a paper plate, perfectly cut slivers of cheesecake resting atop them. She'd just thought Nashville had wanted to buy the team a treat when she'd asked that they stop by a local bakery on the drive between Smokey Point and The Naval Station, but now… she wasn't sure what the Light Cruiser was getting at. Had she been starving the fairy, and was going to eat the… chocolate raspberry, if she recalled correctly, in front of her as a form of torture?

"That kind of technique requires a firm grasp of psychology, though." Agent Peters added. He continued to spin a pen around in one of his hands, but this time it hovered over an open notebook.

"Fairies are simple creatures." Lieutenant Commander Murray noted. With both elbows on the table and his hands staples in front of him, it was hard to read his expression, but his gaze didn't stray from the projection. He was a psychologist himself, right? Shangri La wasn't sure what kind of methods this 'Scharff' had used, but it would make sense the inexperienced cruiser would defer to her superior. "Not dumb, by any means, but Nashville should be familiar enough with them to manipulate this one."

Lowering his hands, her commander glanced over at Shangri La with an unsaid apology in his eyes. The carrier nodded in acceptance. Some of her crew weren't happy to hear that, but she had to admit there was truth to his words. Her crew performed their duties as well as anyone would expect a human to, depending on training, morale, and the usual factors, but outside of that?

Well, excluding a very limited range of topics, she couldn't hold a conversation with one.

Speaking of the fairy, the abyssal had clearly noticed the sweets. With the low-quality webcam it was hard to make out the tiny being's expression, but her head was certainly following the food as Nashville laid it on the table.

The Light Cruiser left the food unattended for a moment, removing a folding metal chair from her hold and setting it up across from the fairy. Something moved in Shangri La's periphery, and The Carrier reflexively checked. It had been Agent Furgeson, the balding man straightening at the sudden appearance of a chair. Was he incredulous that Nashville could store that in her dress?

Smiling to herself, The Carrier returned to the projected feed. He'll get used to that sort of thing, eventually.

Back in the interrogation room, Nashville had sat down, dropping a pair of plastic forks between herself and her prisoner.

"Good morning."

Nashville's greeting echoed from the laptop's tiny speakers, but the fairy remained silent. By listening in on the two abyssals talking to each other, Nashville gathered that this one had been the aircraft's gunner, and hoped isolating this one first would get better results. However, while the two abyssals had started talking (albeit about nothing useful) fairly quickly together, here she remained quiet.

The conference room matched the silence of the impromptu interrogation chamber, the observers focused on the prisoner. She could be holding her tongue due to discipline, sure, but there was also the possibility she was too frightened or curious to speak. Honestly, the idea that abyssal fairies thought similarly to regular ones was only an assumption, but Shangri La guessed that wasn't confirmed. There could be dozens of reasons this one was staying quiet.

Undeterred by the silence, Nashville grabbed one of the forks she'd dropped on the table, delicately slicing a small portion of the cheesecake off and placing it into her mouth. After making a show of relaxing, smiling, and rolling the treat around in her mouth, the Light Cruiser spoke up again.

"It's pretty good." She commented, sliding the second plate over to the fairy. "You should try it."

It… did look pretty good. As a portion the thin slice of cake wasn't much for a shipgirl, but Nashville was planning on letting the rest of the office get a taste afterwards, right?

The fairy still didn't say anything, but hesitantly stood, waddling over to the confection she'd been offered. Accepting the second plastic fork and resting it on her shoulder, the fairy eased the utensil onto the edge of the dark cheesecake. Of course, it was too light to sink into the soft dessert, so the fairy awkwardly had to reposition herself over the fork to lever it down.

Shangri La couldn't hide her smile anymore. Even if this was vital for hunting down Trinitite, it was pretty darn entertaining.

After struggling to force the plastic fork through the cheesecake's cookie crust, the captured gunner set it down, a small portion of the desert now balanced atop the utensil. Sliding it forwards so the treat balanced on the edge of the plate, the fairy tried to wrap her mouth around the fork, only to take a step back, pause, then try again. From the poor quality of the webcam feed, it was difficult to tell exactly what was going on, but by reconstructing the scene in her head Shangri La suddenly realized the problem. The fork was massive relative to the fairy, just a little too wide for her mouth. Fortunately, Nashville seemed to grasp the problem just as quickly, as she slowly leaned forwards.

"Let me help with that." The Light Cruiser offered, reaching down and snapping one of the plastic fork's tongs off.

Again, the fairy didn't say anything, but did nod to the light cruiser before trying again. Grabbing a tong in each hand, she wrapped her mouth around the fork, taking a hesitant bite of the treat. The abyssal abruptly stopped, taking a few steps back as she focused on the food she'd just ate.

"What do you think?"

A moment passed.

"...Hey."

"She loves it." Shangri La announced. It was strange, as when she was in the same room as a fairy, she had no problem making out their speech, but through the microphone all she heard was a series of 'Heys.' This is what humans heard, right? Must get pretty old for them after a while. If it wasn't for Nashville radioing the conversation over to her with her own equipment, she'd be just as bad at understanding the fairy as the rest of the humans here.

"Great. That's all yours." Nashville announced, taking another bite of cheesecake. After enjoying her slice, Nashville leaned in to grab another bite, only to place the fork down and close distance with the fairy. "Do you think Trinitite would like it?"

The Fairy froze, her treat momentarily forgotten as she stared at her captor.

"Going in for the kill already?" Deputy Golding noted, minor surprise apparent in the Marshall's tone. Before someone else could respond, however, the fairy finally spoke up.

"How do you know that name?" Shangri La translated.

"We have our methods." Nashville replied. As The Light Cruiser wasn't facing the camera it was impossible to make her expression, but Shangri La could hear the sadistic smile in her response. "Anyways, it's called cheesecake. Do you think your ship would like it?"

"Hey."

"That's a yes." Shangri La translated. The Abyssal's dessert preferences didn't seem particularly important to her, but Shangri La hadn't been studying interrogation all this time. The experts in the room didn't seem to think anything was wrong…

"Good." She said, motioning to the fairy's cheesecake. "I'll let you finish another bite."

The conference room remained silent as the abyssal prisoner sliced another narrow portion of the cheesecake off, this time ignoring the fork and using her hands to take smaller bites from the dessert.

"Now, I know you're suspicious, but after learning some new information, my superiors think we can resolve the conflict between your ship and ourselves."

Despite herself, Shangri La felt herself leaning forwards. Nashville had more-or-less expressed the opposite sentiment during their conversation yesterday. Had the Carrier's argument changed her mind? Probably not, The Essex admitted to herself. Acting like you couldn't wait to sink a pilot's home base wasn't going to ingratiate yourself to them, after all.

At least she was entertaining the idea, if only to fake believing in it.

Reaching into her hold and producing a file, Nashville hesitated for a second, before fishing an image out of the folder and placing it between the two.

"You're looking for her, correct?"

This was the second bombshell. Part of Shangri La was worried about telling the Fairy too much information. These abyssal pilots were special because any other they'd tried to capture had committed suicide, and that implied they returned to their mothership after death just like many shipgirl pilots did. Telling her too much might just motivate her to finally do the deed, reporting the free intel to her commander without the Navy gaining much in return. However, Shangri La could admit there was an advantage of making the fairy think they knew more than they actually did.

They had a second pilot if this one offed herself, after all.

Nashville's gambit might have been paying off, as the Fairy answered in affirmative without much hesitation.

"Do you think we could arrange a meeting?"

Nashville's offer was thoroughly against Saratoga's wishes, and counter to preferences of pretty much everyone involved in Absolute Railroad, but convincing the carrier to show up at a set place and time through the pilot would be infinitely more valuable than some general intelligence.

Still, if Nashville did manage to arrange a meeting with Trinitite, Shangri La would suggest they send herself out in good faith instead of bringing the hammer down. Maybe it was the fact that the Wo-class was something of a half-sister to the Essex, or perhaps it was that she'd known what Saratoga was like while she'd been at her lowest point on Bikini.

Perhaps it was just curiosity. Intercepted transmissions had answered many questions on the nature of abyssal princesses, but The Abyss's cannon fodder remained mysterious. No matter which, the more she thought about it, the better a general conversation with the renegade wo sounded.

The fairy didn't reply, staring at the photo while chewing down another handful of cheesecake, but Nashville found the patience to wait for her.

The seconds dragged on, pressure slowly rising in Shangri La's active boilers, until a single, unsteady "Hey" drifted from the tinny speakers.

Shangri La tensed, listening to the repeated response from Nashville's radio transmission, before relaying the response.

"She said yes!" The Aircraft carrier practically cheered, a smile spreading across her face. She'd had her misgivings about Nashville, but it seemed Lieutenant Commander Murray's trust in the Light Cruiser hadn't been misplaced. She'd managed to convince the fairy to cooperate!

Checking the mood of the others in the room saw a similar sentiment among the Marshall and Agent Peters, but the experienced Furgeson was still watching the feed with a carefully neutral gaze.

"Okay." Nashville replied neutrally. "Now, before I can recommend anything, I'd need to know how Trinitite would respond to seeing her."

The floodgates were open, now. The fairy's immediate answer wasn't particularly helpful (there was a chance her not knowing was a lie, but it wasn't like they'd captured a flag officer), but they'd made progress. Without help from the civilians, too! They were all on the same team, and Shangri La didn't have anything against most of them, but something about Agent Furgeson told her they probably should be relying on him too much. On the other hand, she was considering a friendly conversation with an abyssal, so perhaps she wasn't the best judge of character.

As the gentle interrogation proceeded, the mood in the conference room continued to lift. Maybe they wouldn't be able to lure Trinitite to a location of their choosing, but it was looking like they were going to get everything they could out of their captives.

Everyone loves some good cheesecake :)

Anyways, I don't feel like I got too much out of Shangri La's perspective, here. Gonna have to write her more in the future, as well as everyone else in the search time. Next chapter's gonna shoot back to Trinitite, but no guarantee on the contents.

Also, shoutout to the youtube channel JCS - Criminal Psychology, for making researching this topic pretty fascinating/entertaining. It doesn't match the situation in this chapter very well (being about criminal interrogations trying to get a confession out of someone instead of military ones trying to get intel out of them), but it helped with writing out some of the basics and setting a tone. I'd recommend the episode on Dalia Dippolito as that one is more funny then sad or dark- unlike several of the others, where viewer discretion is advised.