Haze Gray 113
Taylor lay on the berth indulging in her favorite hobby. Which was made even easier by the huge pad her yeoman had come up with. That and the stylus. The thing had more computing power than the design demon's whole suite of computers. Plus, all the CAD/CAM tools. The thing could project three D designs! It even made up for Amy's singing in the shower.
She smiled, Amy had been so mad when she had run into the head with that first aid kit. High notes were not her forte. Those cigarettes she used to smoke probably. Taylor pinked a buit and glared at her giggling yeoman dancing in a three D image. It had only taken Amy getting kicked out of bed to brush her teeth once.
Amy walked over to the berth and lay out along Taylor, her favorite position and propped her chin on her shoulder to look at what she was doing. "Erh, Taylor, those are too close together, and a bit short. At least that round end. Why is the handle so big? Hell, why are their two of them? Oh! Do you use it with a partner?"
Taylor squinted at the pad "I measured Alina and Leslie, those would fit on both of them. I mean Alina is still growing but that's mostly internal now. Thickening walls, that sort of thing." The yeoman fell over and rolled around the tablet with her fist stuffed in her mouth. Amy's head nurse looked at the drawing, rendered model really, and gaped then face palmed. She opened her mouth and got tackled by the chief yeoman who had both hand over her mouth.
Taylor looked at the two rolling around dressed like her and Amy and shrugged while getting a bit pink "Girls will be girls?"
Amy nodded "Wait you measured Alina and Leslie? Alina I get, but what did Eric say?"
Taylor shrugged, "Not much but he helped hold the tape measure? Leslie was whispering to him."
Amy frowned "I didn't know we were doing this. I mean we haven't…."
Taylor nodded "Just doodling. Everybody has designs and they take them out and polish them up once in a while. The Japanese even did it for real but only three aircraft per boat. I'm thinking Pogos. Well K Pogos, we got better engines and folding pros now so they could be as long as you need really. Though with Leslie's method that Alina uses when can get a bunch up and then really jump on somebody."
"Wut?" Amy blinked.
'Hey, hey hey hey hey.' The head nurse finally wrestled free by getting the Yeomans head in a leg lock.
Taylor blinked, tilted her head, first one way, then the other, then blushed furiously. Amy pinked nicely then adopted a superior mien. She knew, deep down in her soul, she would be paying for this for a while. As soon as Taylor thought through the conversation and got over being embarrassed.
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Alina eyed her chief yeoman "Nobody better hear about this." The yeoman nodded. Guaranteeing this latest bit of comedy from the boss would make it around at least the female crew and support staff shortly.
'Hey'
"Yep, she would kill us dead if we cut in line." Alina smiled at how possessive Rachel was over the 'alphas'. It was cute, in a snarly, rip your throat out, kind of way. There was a hierarchy and no matter your tonnage or capability if you didn't want to take a bath in white phosphorus or get chased around by a jillion torpedoes you kept your place in it.
She looked over the rendered model again and laughed until tears ran down her face again. Then frowned How wide did Amy think, nope! Not going there, not never.
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Lisa tilted her head and then shook it. She really couldn't see how Amy even thought that. That was obviously a slanted deck. What did she think those four lines were, the ones that ended in horns? Even without a scale reference it was pretty plain.
Now these Pogo's they were cuter than the Lockheed was it, yes Lockheed tail sitters and by the time the yard got through with the propfans and jamming an Osprey engine in them they would probably be supersonic. How many? Huh, so that was a full strike package it the Pogos could multirole.
How the hell did they keep them from being spun like a top by the propfans? Could something as long as Taylor that grossed nearly her tonnage unladen even be called a submarine? Wait, how many torpedo tubes? Plus, vertical launch cells all down both flight decks? Why aircraft at all then?
Lisa looked at the plan closer "Oh Taylor, what did you do? You plan this to be a Kanmusu? Who even?" Lisa started working the yeomanry ratlines to see if some girl was shipping as one of these already."
Kim popped up under her covers on her unmade bed and Lisa shrieked and chucked the tablet at her. Kim caught it and grinned "Stealth boat!"
"Stop doing that you biotch. I nearly peed." Lisa glared.
Kim grinned wider "You could be good at stealth if you didn't have to prove you were smarter than everyone to everyone."
Dinah added "Yep." From behind Lisa who dove out of her chair and sprawled on the deck.
"Doggon it stop that both of you!"
Dinah shrugged "Wrong future. Neither of us are white wolves with red orange markings. That could be fun though. I play that game.
"What did Amy mean too close?"
Kim pointed at Lisa. Lisa sighed, it was impossible to tell if Dinah was just trying to embarrass them both, all even, or really hadn't put it together. She nearly had to see futures with sex in them right?
Kim sighed "We really shouldn't be spying on them."
Lisa opened her mouth but Dinah beat her to the punch "Phht, we aren't. It's the yeomen." Kim arched a dubious brow. Dinah waved her off "So these plans, anyone got anything? I mean another couple of days of gunnery then its all formations and maneuvers.
"At least until the staff thinks we are ready for Simmie if she goes nuts.
"After that its power projection 101 in the western Pacific. Eastern? Depends which side you live on, I guess."
Kim grinned at Lisa and fell out laughing when she growled.
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The USH Chief of Naval Operations watched the staff out in the big room working at a low purposeful hum. One section was still working the cleanup from the most recent operations and the upcoming leases. Buck was heavily involved in vetting the crews who were going to be supporting the leased boats and in some cases training them. Those sessions were being filmed and that film edited into a complete program of instruction. New services members had to be trained after all.
New crew members had to be evaluated as well. That was a hell of an evaluation, pilot candidates couldn't pass it. Buck wasn't one for letting go of the standards or relaxing them.
He read the report again and drummed his fingers. It really seemed the younger service members fared better in both the rather different physical requirements Bick imposed, being able to carry an eighty-pound dog for the entirety of the physical fitness test and still pass it being the tip of that iceberg. At least the run portion of the test.
The rescue swim with a dog was another test that was eliminating applicants. Well, not eliminating all of them. If Buck judged them worthy, or a dog did, those service members got to spend some time with masters of fitness until they could pass it.
Amazingly the people would hurt themselves to pass the course. The dogs spent a lot of time watching out for the Humans they approved of.
Buck was also amazing. If she truly had been able to do all this as a just teen girl as people said it was no wonder her relatively specialized power had gotten her classified as a supervillain. She could have, in his judgement, passed any of the special forces qualification courses before she shipped. She had admirable focus as well.
That being the case it was an indicator of the standard the service members of the fleet had to be trained to. He looked at the document BuPers had developed and signed it. He would be hated but sailors needed someone to bitch about. And it would save their commanders pain in the end.
Putting that document in his outbox he turned to the plan or returned to it. Working up underway into a war theater. The post war Navy had not done this. They had the luxury of time. This fleet didn't have that luxury but it did have dedicated Sailors, Soldiers, Marines and Airmen. It also had amazing support from the yards, and logistics that were unequaled even by the United States in full war production in early forty five just before the end of the war became obvious and most of the problems had been worked out of the system.
Fuel was no longer a concern and with the portals they really couldn't outrun their lines of communication.
What was or could become a problem was the Fleet Commander's limited experience. She, and thus the fleet had so far had the devil's own luck. Good to great plans to be sure, but that bastard Murphy got a vote as did the enemy. Certainly, both of those had voted in their favor so far. One seriously wounded ship and one pilot.
Both of those had pitched the fleet into a frenzy though. He pulled up the exhaustive after-action report of the battle of Schim plain for another review. They had stuck with the plan with the exception of closing to melee range, all of them rather than the brawlers had closed to knife fighting range.
Once at that range they had performed magnificently, but that was against a Endbringer who was engaged on two fronts. An experienced, well qualified, human opponent, not already decisively engaged on two fronts might be a different story.
He drummed his fingers again. They needed more submarines and they needed them badly. PT boats, uprated or not, were nowhere near as capable at scouting or disrupting enemy communications, military and voice or data, as submarines.
The Admiral chuckled at the lead paragraph of Juggernaut's actions in the melee. That girl had always punched way above her class. He pulled open a file and chuckled. Maybe not as far as before if these plans of the yards kept on schedule. It would take a few years, but she was a growing girl. Still topping out at nearly eight thousand tons was a bit much. Some of these transitions were a bit worrying. Not least keeping both five inch all the way through. As the lead ship of the class, she had insisted though. Even if Butler was shipped too. The ship girls considered the class leader to be the first girl who shipped in that class no mater what the actual name ship of the class was. Then there was the first ship. They all deferred to her. He looked at the plans and smiled at the 'Brockton Bay' scrawled in the approval block. They asked her permission too. They were good girls.
He took a drink of his coffee and smiled. He still had the best messman in the navy. It would all be fine, most likely. He was more confident than he had been in forty, that was for sure. With the state of the worlds navies and the ship girls advantages there was no doubt they would be successful on anything they tried on the oceans. The level of pain was the only problem, Mental and physical.
Haze Gray
"Ambitious." Danny told Maria looking over her shoulder at the plan as she was leaning back against him in the berth as she read.
"To much?"
Danny shrugged "The other fella gets a vote. I would say enemy, but we seemed focused on keeping it below that level."
Maria nodded "Freedom of the seas patrol. Show of force they call it in the press. New keels being laid though, and I saw a plan Taylor has been playing with. I think with us gaining a ship a week and the possibility of one of the national contingents shipping, the Germans seem likely, we will end up with an enemy to fight."
Danny nodded "Pirates if nothing else. Tyrone says there are pirates that have rebuilt post panama ships into floating bases. Mostly in Indonesian waters but they will know we are going to be out there." Maria machinegunned Spanish and French. Danny smiled from just the few words he caught. "So these pirates better be careful or they will be taught what piracy really is."
Maria turned her head and favored him with a look "Like Hispaniola doesn't know what piracy is?" Danny smiled and pecked her on the lips. While marveling at how far she could actually turn her head. Then he looked at her pad with her fingers and three yeomen dancing on it producing orders and demands for information from the Abuela to get from some of their young people who might be on a different path than most.
He chuckled when she turned back and her fingers and yeoman's dance sped up with her pads screen flashing red with the anti-piracy part of the plan coming together for a briefing to La Dona. He blinked "CV five?"
"Florencia Domenica Josephina Juanita Lositos, I think that name is made up, but she came with family. Her mother anyway. America class, homeport Havana. They are fitting out."
Danny blinked "They?"
Maria nodded "Whole Cuban group, one carrier, four heavy cruisers, twelve destroyers, two submarines, two LHD. The Castro's got sentenced, as you know, La Dona commuted their sentence to life with no chance of parole to be served at her pleasure in her facility in Antarctica. Most of the girls in that family who were in the political prison with their relatives and the Castro's followers triggered one day. Bam! It was not a nice place. It is closed now and the prisoners transported to the various locations for their sentences.
"No one is really happy but it is probably for the best."
Danny blinked "I hadn't even realized Taylor had made a decision."
Maria nodded "She didn't call in the media to announce it. They are gone, they won't be back."
Danny nodded, then blinked "CV five? Where are three and four?" He sighed at the huff he got and sure enough the look came back.
"You are interested in other women?" The yeomen settled in sitting on the pad. One produced popcorn.
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Kurt looked at Lacy rolling around on the bed laughing at the K pad she had gotten. "Those things are the tools of the devil." Lacy rubbed her eyes and howled. Kurt had one two, his didn't get the Yeomans channel since he wasn't a verified female. Verified by a yeoman.
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Emily sat up feeling a disturbance in the force and grabbed her K pad. She paged through the activity and groaned falling back on the bed.
Dwayne arched a brow after being awakened, grabbed the pad and read it "Pirates have always been a problem in the western pacific. Usually don't bother Gray hulls though. Hmm, could get bolder with the Chinese gone. You'd think they would be smarter than try Taylor and the girls though. Not like they won't have heard what happened to those narco idiots in Venezuela. Crafty little bastards generally. Though they did have stuff we needed once in a while. They were getting better at that and better at the paper trail so we could actually buy it. They hadn't gotten hooks in the government either. The government was a bigger bunch of criminals than they wanted to mess with.
"Let me talk to some guys. I'll get you the up-to-date intel on them."
Emily lifted her head and looked at him. "Talk to some guys, is there anything you don't have a contact for somewhere?" Dwayne looked thoughtful for a minute then looked her up and down and rolled over her. Emily smirked, she never noticed the yeoman, wearing full PRT gear, that appeared and jumped on the camera off button of her pad then disappeared again.
Haze Gray
Simmie popped some popcorn in her mouth and watched the screen, a sheet hung on one wall of the container her gifts came in. Her private screening room. She turned her head and watched South Pacific running again to make sure everything was good, then bounced to 'Wash That Man Outa my Hair.' While she watched today's roundup on her tablet. Which had a real pain to sneak past the Yeomanry and float across the pacific. In fact, she hadn't been able to. She had had to trade.
Damn seagulls. That should teach them though. Once the population recovered. Poop on her boats and try to steal her K pad out of midair!
Brothers not helping her acquire it too, they needed a special present each for that. She blinked as a future showed her the seagulls over and around the black sea dropped out of the air. As if that would help him now! She kept watching the roundup in the now, last night in Taylors quarters in the past, and oldest brother committing an extinction event on seagulls in the future while she popped popcorn into her mouth.
The girls used the fifteen hundred thread count sheets of the finest cotton she could strip right out of the bolls across the cotton growing regions of the world on Taylor's berth! Oh, oh my, Amy looked very nice laying on those. Oh! Simmie blushed and watched a different point in the past.