Haze Gray 112

Taylor went over the list of equipment again. "So, we are leaving a CB detachment, a task organized company really, with a vertical platoon, a heavy platoon and a trades platoon on every spec of land in the Pacific. OK, Why?"

Noelle told them all "Its your 'put them on an island plan' somebody needs to finish those islands and we still have crew, and the front, left even after all the folks we committed to support the Coast Guard and get moving through Mexico and integrating with Mexican law enforcement."

"We sort of swept up the cartels people and the corrupt officials, at least in northern Mexico, In the anti Vory operation and that gave the Mexican government enough breathing space to get officials, their police, and Army, who weren't corrupt working with us." Lisa added "Plus now the river miners are pushing into Mexico so the dogs can go help. The US government is helping the Mexican government, supplying troops even.

"We are supplying their own people who run through our ICE stations back to work in Mexico, well theirs and all the other non USH, temporary USH? Anyway, Spanish speakers. Did you look at the Mexican immigration requirements? Much more stringent than the US ones and the penalties are nearly medieval.

"The Mexican equivalent of the ICE has jumped into the stations as well. Sort of still negotiating on that. Same deal as the US but in Peso's. Cost of living is lower there though. Plus we had to give them computers and run through thier government systems and get them all talking to each other. They were even worse than the US governments computers about that.

"We are getting a dock together astride of the US Mexico border at the mouth of the Rio Grand so its all joint international kumbaya and cracker."

Taylor nodded "And a port in Brazil. I didn't know there was this much limestone to cook into concrete in the world."

Noelle nodded "Other resources too, metals, minerals, man, our burn rate is enormous."

"Is it really a burn rate if we make money on everything?" Taylor asked. The other girls in the baths at Mare frowned and some counting on fingers happened. Taylor shook her head "Won't leaving CBs everywhere leave us short of engineer assets?"

All the girls looked at Raisa, a newer Russian Antietam, who blushed "They are useful and they can fight." Taylor arched a brow. Raisa huffed "All of my children are engineers of one kind or another, Navy, Marine, Army, Airforce, and I only make engineer equipment."

Tarawa grinned "It's the strangest thing."

Taylor narrowed her eyes at the twittering Antietams all lined up on one side of the docks. She heard the snort and turned her head to the herd of Havens. Amy waved her off "They aren't lying. They didn't do anything. Raisa's parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, her whole family are all engineers. She was studying engineering. The researchers are looking at her genetics. Its weird but there are some families in Russia who have this happen, The Kalashnikovs, like that. Its where the Soviet design bureaus came from. Good to great engineers marrying good to great engineers, which makes sense if you are trapped in some military city in Siberia, at least they had like interest, anyway, they had kids who did the same thing. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, they all took their skills and fled, or a lot of them did, and here we are." She waved at Raisa.

Taylor was counting on her fingers now "It has to be more complicated than the Russians accidentally breeding engineers and then letting them escape?"

Lisa, who had finished counting on her fingers shook her head "You would think but Captain obvious agrees with Amy. They built an excellent closed incubator."

"Hey!" Raisa exclaimed. The discussion went on a while.

Haze Gray

Out in Quarters one sitting around a long table in the dinning room the significant players, including the president of Mexico now, were sitting around an enormous table having a working lunch, Felipe looked at Leonel "I'm surprised to see you in the government of the USH. Surely it gives some of my citizens hope."

Leonel laughed "Oh, that was a good attempt. You know I was never part of the ruling seven. I've been judged by the only court that matters on the USH. La Dona and Maria Peppin have enough faith in me to trust me, you should as well." Then he returned fire "So, your little problem?"

Felipe glared at him "Cured by the baths my doctors tell me. They are desperate to get the miracles in Mexico."

Julia, freshly arrived from Australia shook her head "As are everyone."

Jurelang, who arrived at nearly the same time as Julia nodded "And the fresh water and power technology."

Felipe nodded "All of us with deserts I think." He looked at Mozah.

Mozah returned the look with a smile and a small laugh "Yes, all of that."

Jurelang asked "The price is a bit steep?"

Mozah shrugged "La Dona does not demand the ship girl's presence. She also does not attempt to rule over them. It is however the best place for them to be trained, and to have companions who are like them, as they are probably the smallest minority in the world. And they seem to keep each other stable. My sceintist and engineers tell me they communicate continuously in a network they cannot breach. Even when the actual girls are sleeping. It has given us some concern. However they also have a contiuos watch set and will respond rapidly and with rapidly escalating violence to threats.

"In due course the Qatar Squadron will move home. Raem is shaping into a very capable leader. Hopefully soon we will get a carrier and an LHD."

Jurelang nodded "I'm personally a bit afraid of an LHD. These have put a lot of men under arms at the disposal of the USH."

"But they do clean up invasive species. Apparently the resource requirements are miniscule, pardon the pun, when they are not on mission. They are the best disciplined troops ever as well." Julia said.

Felipe nodded "However they are loyal to La Dona only."

Benigno agreed "Which is very concerning."

Barack, listening the whole time as the SEATO major players conversed sighed. David leaned closer to him "Still amazed SEATO didn't dissolve like it did in the other universe. It's always been a bit of a struggle holding it together. And it gained more and more members. Now with the Chinese on the back foot it may get hardier, if harder to manage as those they were trying to make client states jump in."

"One would hope not, most of those countries are close enough, some even connected physically, to what is shaping up to be a large conflict." Angela said quietly.

Stephen nodded "Jurelang has outsized influence, and now has an Endbringer of his own. He seems fairly calm, that concern about the LHDs is not just his. Brockton can put a lot of troops on the ground quickly and while her force generation is constrained by resources she has more of those than us according to my analyst estimates."

Nicolas, another recent arrival, leaned into the group "Our analyst are telling me Behemoth is supplying the Kanmusu." He leaned back to judge the fall of shot.

Barack nodded "Leviathan killed a violent typhoon that would have built until it interfered with Taylors exercise in the Pacific. He has apparently also stepped on some other storms reducing their ferocity. We suspect Ziz is in communication with the other two and they are taking instructions from her. At least according to my analyst."

Nicolas blinked and then laughed "Carla will be insufferable if that is true. She has watched every second of the Ziz clothing shows. She is convinced Ziz wants to be a ship girl." He was not quiet about it and everyone around the table froze.

Barack pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hoppu. I hope Cassidy is ready to adopt."

Stephen shook his head "Taylor. She mom boats everyone now."

Mozah nodded and laughed brightly. Her son, with her for proprieties sake, sighed.

Naruhito, present to represent Japan, grumbled "And not a Japanese girl among them."

David grinned "But you used Fletcher's and Gleason's, some Cannon class as well. And you have some young women in the docks, all the docks I understand from the Queens detachments. You build LHD classes now. Pretty similar to the Anteitams.

"I don't think you will get cruisers, any type, or battleships but then again you might. I'd repeat the old adage of being careful what you wish for." Naruhito nodded.

Haze Gray

Danny looked at Tyrone "That's considerably farther than we have gone before. With more people."

Tyrone shrugged "Fuel is cheap, the engines burn the lowest grade of whatever sludge the refinery would normally flare or sell off as asphalt, it comes out of the portals at about four hundred degrees and goes straight to the fuel rails. Base rations are cheaper. At least if we use the ration bars. Frozen food is cheap from the yard, as long as you stay with seafood, well fish, and pork for proteins. That carp processes into some pretty good fake fish products. We have portals so can sell what we catch along the way and get in fresh food if we need. Worst case two replenishment ships are going along and we can buy food and fuel. Or use their portals if we get a whole container of something to sell.

"Did you know those crazy drones they use can carry a ton now that they use portals and burn flare gas? Mark rigged up a parachute system. A low pass and they could probably put a package on the deck. We got two of the older model and upgraded them. It will take them two to four days to reach us but we can order whatever we need and Janice back at Brockton or Bill hear at Mare will send it. Jesus down in the USH too. Once they upgrade and test that one. Airframe is fine but the engines are worn completely out when they bring them back. Sixteen thousand hours on an engine between rebuilds is pretty impressive though.

"We would have gotten K Dash but those all go into spraying operations rather than up for sale when they come off operations, after they get stripped and rebuilt anyway. Only one a month so far. Things are tough as nails. The yard stopped building purpose-built spray Dash though. They have like twenty-five out somewhere in the world.

"The UN is paying for Africa. Something about it stopping the conflicts. Which is bull. Haters gonna hate and always find a reason to hate each other, tribes, sexuality, politics, religion, the way the donkey next door smells, something."

Danny chuckled "Yeah, those damn donkeys." Tyrone spocked a brow at him and he laughed. "You're right of course. Might help though if they aren't scrambling for survival so hard."

Tyrone sighed "People been mistreating each other in Africa since before there were white people. It's going take more, adopting better agricultural practices, construction methods, hell, tool use even. Besides weapons. Better education so people quit falling back on old methods as soon as whoever brought the new methods in leaves and the machines break. Problem solving skills that don't involve someone else doing it for them. They need to grow it themselves, so it has value to them. A village leader doesn't need a tractor to use as a car either. Or to use to curry favor by letting his or her cronies use it until they break it because they weren't the ones trained on it. Normally they are the ones resisting whatever organization brings them in.

"The walking tractors and Gos can fix a lot of that. For the same cost as a big four-wheel drive high horsepower tractor and its implements that take hours of maintenance and training to operate long term successfully that are really status symbols, you can equip hundreds of farmers with Gos. That takes him from farming one hectare and grazing ten to farming ten hectares and grazing a hundred. Or at least maintaining the pasture or haying ten.

"The girls sustainable practices and things get profitable pretty quick. Add in an apiary and chicken tractors, good practices on those, and life gets pretty easy. As long as Taylors water thing keeps working. One of those for ten of those hundred ten hectare farms and you could probably take away ninety percent of the warlords control methods.

"Plus, the yards have them doing precision agriculture too. Or they can for just a few extra dollars. They don't even need GPS. They have this thing you set up and calibrate and then the go gets a guidance and mapping fixed point from it. Two of them widely separated and you can get to within an inch for kilometers around them. So a bunch of farmers can gang up and buy one and put it on the water thing.

"Of course, that's just going to lead to the Headman and his cronies getting jealous and killing the peasant farmers so…." He shrugged.

Danny patted him on the shoulder "Maybe not. The leasing program USAID and the UN are running could actually work. It did in, uh, Senegal was it? Yeah Senegal. A square kilometer for each farmer though I think.

"Anyway, you know Taylor, after she buys up the North American continent and gets finished in Central and South America, she is going to go look at Africa. Said something about sand. Lots of that in north Africa." Tyrone looked at him for a minute then laughed and laughed. Danny frowned not seeing what was so funny. Tyrone kept laughing because he figured she would get to it in his lifetime. Moord Nag was so faffed. All the warlords.

Haze Gray

Nancy finally caught up and spent some time in her new district. She was confident. Her staff looked at her amazed. Crowds of tens of people and she just defaulted to calling them intimate gatherings. Her primary opponent was filling stadiums. NFL and MLB stadiums with capacities of a hundred thousand.

The woman was smart, well educated, younger, from a middle-class family, not living in a dream world, and not white in a majority not white district. The only thing Nancy had going over her opponent was seniority. And coming from a family of career politicians and activist.

They quietly put out feelers. A freshman congressperson would need an experienced staff. Quietly because Nancy had proved an astute career politician, she had to be to stay in office as long as she had being as they said in the vernacular 'slap crazy'. She could say, when she wasn't being Nancy, exactly what fifty one percent of her district wanted to hear.

Haze Gray

Taylor watched the gunnery practice and had to giggle. New girls and full auto, it was a thing. Even the capitol ships that had five inch did it. Wait a minute "Hello?"

The Alaska class turned, looked at her, and smiled hugely. She was as tall as Taylor, as well built, and tan skinned. "Guam!" She held her arms out and did a pirouette kind of thing. "Mom and dad are going to freak!"

Taylor hugged her. Hawaii sailed up and leapt on them. The girls all drifted to a stop and came back standing around the Alaska class in a pile on the oceans surface. Amy sighed, then grinned, got a speculative look, blushed, and shook her head. Then she turned around and glared at the tittering herd with the flying eyebrows. Or waggling ones at any rate.

Alina looked at Leslie "That is a pile of guns right there."

Leslie looked her up and down then jumped on her. She went down flailing. It turned into a bit of a free for all. Of course a news sixty foot RIB had to catch it all on a long lens. The lead story ran with Cyndi Lauper's 'Girl's Just Want to Have Fun' over it. It even covered the new Alaska class.

After a little wrestling Taylor sat up "So, how did this happen?"

Guam shrugged, "Was on a scholarship, still am. The docks are relaxing AF. Just what is called for after a long day of class and studying. Plus sea people. Or people that understand the sea, and fishing, and farming. Kind of everything I like.

"Anyway, I spent a lot of time in the dock. Finals came up, plus a boy who wasn't taking no for an answer and I was thinking I was going to have to hurt. Chamorro." She shrugged as if that explained it all, which it did. "Then well, boom, ship! Yall were over in Kearny learning more about farming the day I shipped."

Hawaii nodded "East coast, Caribbean, West Coast, Western Pacific. Makes a certain kind of sense."

Taylor frowned "Except there were six of us planned and there are seven seas. Plus, Maria is a Des Moines, uprated. Raem as well."

Hawaii frowned "More contained bodies of water? Hate to say it but they are a tiny bit more, uh, agile, in constricted waters."

Guam looked at her "Did you just call us all fat?"

Taylor sighed "Every time."

Juggernaut skated up and jumped on Taylor "Where are your escorts?"

Guam chuckled "Well there are about twenty-seven girls with sparky nails that were hanging out, Pacific Islanders, including some Japanese girls. Then about thirty Chinese students who kind of got abandoned when China did whatever they are doing, who are really pissed and not going back even if they can later. Plus, their families are being pulled out. At least that many hang out in the dock

"Whatever China is doing it's the wrong thing. The brain drain is going to be horrendous.

"Probably got enough all together with Hawaii's girls to have two fast battleship, or large cruiser, task forces. The Pacific is huge. We could probably use a hundred more. If it goes as usual with the dogs as we visit islands, they can cover within a hundred miles of their islands though, a squadron per would be about right for that. That just leaves the open ocean to worry about."

Taylor frowned "Should we wait until the others ship?"

Juggernaut waved her off "As much stopping and port calling as it looks like we will be doing they can catch up. If they even finish with you and Amy out in the open ocean."

Tess coasted up "We have you training girls to get their sea legs and weight under control on video Taylor. A whole program of instruction really, test and all on the intranet. A complete work up on the individual ship level. The admiral and staff can watch them remotely even, and grade them. Fleet exercises they will need to join us anyway. It will be fine. The staff can run the gunnery range remotely with crew from the dock supporting.

"Plus, I have a plan for a sort of bag with a portal when we are in port so we can get replenished. Really its more of a forcefield the caged tinkers came up with so its really not a problem. Two portals and the force fields so it's a bit of an energy hog but it works. Its in a can that fits through one of the portals. Sets itself up then breaks itself down and moves to the next port. We can tell it where and it will send itself there. Which I still haven't figured out how it does. Alice no doubt, maybe Leet, could be Sherrel." She tapped her lips with a finger.

The others looked at her and she tracked back over what she had said "Bakuda, she was a genius before she triggered. Unfortunately, antisocial in the extreme as well. She actually seems happier in the place she is now. No one to bother her. And of course, we give her projects all the time. Plus Leet. Oh! And it takes all of them to keep his power from doing things that are extremely dangerous to the person starting the thing.

"You can't believe how many hours we spend in review on each thing. Even Armsmaster is convinced his power is trying to kill him." The others kept looking at her. She huffed.

Lisa finally said "Armsmaster isn't wrong. Which is way weird, why would a power do that? Arrgh!" She grabbed her head "Stop that you faffing thing!" The others fell out laughing as Lisa proved they knew very little about powers arguing with hers.

Taylor got the gunnery exercise back on track, eventually.