The wait is always boring, reflected Nagato. It had been over two hours since she had received a message on priority red saying that the patrol fleet diverted to investigate the noise was returning with an unknown kanmusu in tow after being jumped on by an Abyssal fleet.
Fuck that, when are they coming?
Twirling a ballpoint, she kept pacing round the pier, the wind blowing her hair around as the waves lapping did little to calm her down. Pacing about, the wind kept blowing as she waited for them to come.
Shortly after, the familiar forms of Fubuki, Kaga, Amatsukaze, and Hibiki appeared, along with an intimidating kanmusu she had never seen. In height she readily towered over Yamato, the largest ship at Yokosuka, and looked equally intimidating. Her olive uniform glistened under the sun, and her eyeglasses glowed on one side, for what reason only god knows. The olive beret that hung on her head teetered as if it was about to fall, but it didn't. Short auburn hair completed the picture along with brown knee-length boots, her rig looked bulky and robust, and looked like it was made to get the job done rather than modular and easy to use like most other kanmusu. Her side displayed the image of an eagle perched atop a globe with its wings spread, and a banner flowed across said barrier with the letters "UNSC" written on it in bold.
The UN Security Council?
Still, protocol was protocol, and she stepped up to meet the newcomer.
"Welcome to Yokosuka. My name is Nagato, the secretary ship of this base."
The newcomer nodded at that, before snapping a quick salute.
"UNSC Providence, Artermis-class battlecruiser. Bee Bee Ess Dash Zero Zero Seven..."
Nagato raised an eyebrow, before switching from Japanese to English.
"I see. Right for the moment, I'm kind of occupied, so Fubuki here will show you around the base. Questions?"
The newcomer, Providence, however, spoke to her in Kansai Japanese, suprising her.
"I certainly appreciate a tour of this base, however I already have a map of this place. I just need to attach names to their landmarks, and that's about it. Also, if everyone here's speaking Japanese, then expect me to speak it too, since apart from Japanese and English I am skilled in six other languages."
"Ok...?"
"And thanks for that."
With that, Providence turned and headed out with Fubuki.
Nagato pondered this information to herself. Having memorized the country naval designations during the start of the Abyssal war, she was able to identify all ships of all nations, but the ship prefix of "UNSC" was unheard of. The fact that she spoke English coupled with her possession of both a name and a numeric code pointed to an American ship, but she had no idea what an American ship not part of the relief convoy would be doing so far west of the coast.
The alpha-numerical code of "BBS" also threw her off. Musing that "BBS" actually meant "BB(S)", meaning that according to the American alpha-numerical code was a battleship, but she introduced herself as a battlecruiser and the US Navy never possessed such a ship. And to further addition, no navy posessed light battleships, but the Kriegsmarine had the Admiral Graf Spree as a famed pocket battleship which seemed to fit the bill. And even then the Kriegsmarine never owned an "Artermis-class".
Also, her rig sported an ungodly amount of gun batteries, which amounted up to thirty. While three or four she could understand, thirty turrets was downright insane.
Further, the class "Artermis" also caught her off, seeing as no navy she knew ever operated such a class. Further, if she was German, then logically, she should be speaking German, not English.
And the fact that her rig didn't look like any seagoing ship's rig wasn't helping things.
Nagato sighed. She supposed she could always call Saratoga and ask her some questions later, but for now she had work to do. She could speculate on the newcomer another time.
She had a carrier and three destroyers to debrief.
"Care to explain exactly what happened?" asked Nagato.
"Um," said Fubuki. "First to note, is that at exactly 1100 GMT," she glanced at the clock,"Which is 1200 here in Japan, a very loud noise was reported, sounding rather vaguely like a cross between an explosion and a whistle. Two minutes later, at 1102 GMT, a second noise was heard, with analysis showing a 94 percent match to a self-propelled munition. Namely, missiles."
"Ok...?"
"I'll continue," said Hibiki.
"At 1105 GMT, visual contact was encountered with aircraft of unknown design, with eyewitness reports as being 'a flying manta ray of metal with glowing wings' or something along those lines, and we asked to divert. After receiving permission to investigate by command at 1120 GMT, we diverted for the source, exactly forty nautical miles south-southwest of Yokosuka. Upon arrival at 1320 GMT, visual contact was established with the remains of a Ru-class battleship, and someone calling herself "UNSC Providence". We presume that the aircraft is hers and the battleship was also her work."
"Ok...?"
"And that's not the nasty stuff." said Hibiki.
"The nasty stuff?" asked Nagato.
"Alright. At 1325 GMT, thousands of Abyssals erupted from the water surface."
Nagato instantly paled, and blinked at Hibiki.
"Say again?"
"At 1325 GMT, thousands of Abyssals erupted from the water surface. Facing certain death, the stranger in question ended up being the one to save our asses."
"And what happened?"
"I'm not talking about the fight, I'm talking about the strange guns she carry. They one-shotted a Ru-class. And not shot off or anything, the demon simply ceased to exist as a whole."
"And when it went off," Fubuki added, "It felt like a punch to the gut. The demon in the center was gone, and not only that, it sent hundreds of Abbies tumbling several hundred meters away and she launched thousands of missiles. In short, she, in two salvoes, pulverized an entire armada equivalent to all of the navies in the world combined without lifting a finger."
Nagato could only stare in blank shock.
Lighting a cigarette with a Zippo lighter, Providence stared out towards the sunset at the pier. Letting out a sigh, she turned her gaze to the stars that were filling the night sky.
The stars were something that kept her sane. For the Covvie invasion held nothing but trauma for anyone who participated. She had developed this habit since her first battle, something which helped her relax and keep to herself throughout her service life from her birth in 2531 to her destruction at Earth in 2553 in the intense six-month battle that had the UNSC outnumbered a thousand to one. And they won... or so she thought.
To this day she still held the stars true to her heart.
Flicking the cigarette to ditch the ash, she turned an eye to the sound of rustling and faced the little so-called "destroyer" that she saved during the last engagement with those "Abyssals". To be more specific, Fubuki.
Providence flicked the cigarette again, as she glanced at a book she had on the bench. Picking it up, she motioned for Fubuki to sit.
After a few moments of awkward silence as they continued to stare at the endless plain of stars that made up the night sky, Provided turned a gaze to Fubuki, who was also doing the same. The latter immediately lit up with a blush so hard that she swore she could see steam leaving her eyes. Turning herself to face the adorable destroyer, she flicked a hand through her hair before she smiled.
"Got something, little missy?" she asked in her Kansai dialect.
The girl continued to look at the ground embarrassed, and she smiled at that. The adorable little destroyer reminded her of a Haldberd-class destroyer of the same name that had been her escort since 2531. With her adorable little personality that would always made her smile, she recalled that the destroyer here was literally identical to her space escort.
Running a hand through Fubuki's hair, the destroyer let out a suprised cry, before leaning into it and she swore she could hear her purring like a cat. Her blushing face made her all the more adorable, to the point where she'd hardly believe this was the same destroyer who cheated certain death only a few hours ago.
She smiled at that, reminding her of the time she would often spend between the Haldberd-class and herself between and during battles, where had it not been for the destroyer's shield missiles she'd been dead long ago.
Eyeing the rig in front of her with obvious interest, Akashi turned to face the rifle in front of it. There were two she could see. One was a double-prong that she had no idea of save that it had two barrels, and the second was similar to the assassin rifles she had often seen on the web. More specifically, this one was chambered in the "bullpup" configuration, with the clip behind the trigger. The lable read "MA5B Individual Combat Weapon System" or some along those lines. Checking the glowing part in front of the trigger, she was met with a bullet icon and a glowing "60". Fumbling for the mag release, she noticed that the ejection port was located on top of the trigger as opposed to the "behind trigger but forward of mag" configuration she'd seen on most bullpups. Finding the release, she hit it, and the magazine ejected. Checking the cartridges inside, she eyed it with interest.
"7.62x51mm? How did they get 60 rounds in a box mag like this?" she asked to herself.
Heading onto the rig, she removed a drill.
Two minutes later, she took out the sixth drill bit. It had been only a few moments since she'd started and the bits simply snapped in her hands outright, which sent questions throughout her mind as the drill bits were capable of going straight through a battleship's armor belt.
She was about to give up to the temptation to throw up her hands and write "Fucking Magic" on her report card when she noticed what looked like hangar doors on the side of the rig. With the assistance of five heavy cruisers and sixteen broken and twisted crowbars later, she finally had the doors propped open... only for them to snap shut, breaking the crowbar in the process.
God damn it.
After repeating the process four more times, she'd finally got the damn door open only to run into another speed nerf: a group of fairies all wielding rifles and they were all pointed at her. One in particular was wielding what seemed to be an oversized handheld set of rails like the one she'd seen on the rig.
Ok, that's fucking adorable. she thought.
A glow appeared from between the rails, and she got out of the way mere moments before it fired, going straight through where her head used to be occupying a split second ago, the smoking hole in the roof made a further testimony of that.
The glow began to grow brighter again, and she narrowed her eyes at the black-chad fairy in front of her, with the rails pointed at her head.
"Hey! What are you doing with that railgun? It's not loaded with TTR, you know!"
Turning around, Akashi noticed the kanmusu from earlier, or so her friends described.
Short brown hair...eyeglasses...olive uniform...black necktie. Must be her.
Turning to face the rig, she spoke some words at the fairies in a language she didn't understand, before they all nodded and walked off.
Turning to face her, the kanmusu held out her hand.
"Name's Providence. And one more thing, what the fuck are you doin' with my hangar propped open line that?"
"Trying to get a sample," replied Akashi. "I wanna see how this thing ticks, so if it gets broken I can fix it."
Providence motioned to the scratch marks on the rig.
"Jeez, what the fuck are you trying to do?"
"I told you, right? I needed a sample."
"If I told you that your trash-ass sorry excuse of a drill had two meters of starship-grade titanium to go through would you believe it?"
Akashi blinked.
"Say again?"
"Two meters of Titanium-A battleplate, with zero-point-four reinforced Carbon-C armor plate, and sixty centimeters Titanium-F battleplate and one-point-two meters Titanium-C/Aluminum-F composite battleplate."
Akashi paled in shock.
"Wa? Two meters?"
"Sure. The basic frigate had sixty centimeters of Titanium-A, with 0.4 meter Carbon-C, sixty centimeters internal crossbraced Titanium-F, and inner spaced armor layer of fifty centimeters Titanium-C/Aluminum-F composite battleplate."
Providence then tapped the CnC portion of her rig.
"Hali, you're still there?"
"Sure I am," said a voice from inside the rig."
Turning to retrieve a small object the size of a lighter, she flicked it on to reveal a hologram of a person no different from herself.
"Meet Halifax." she said curtly.
"My onboard AI. Nice day to you."
And with that, she left, but not before lighting a cigarette and leaving behind her a trail of smoke.
"Ok... Halifax?" Akashi said.
"Here I am, always there," responded the hologram with sarscram. "Obviously."
A/N:
Some answers to the reviews:
KumquatMan:
Glad to hear that. On a second note, I suggest that you set your list of followed stories to "Last Updated". It's a simple system, but it works.
This chapter was actually spliced from a few ancient documents I had on my FFFN account since I first started. What I did was to clean them up a little.
Funny story: When I first started, I wrote on the Notes app on iOS and saved it on my drafts on Gmail. Not the best idea, as there are two major speed nerfs: Notes lag too hard to write every couple hundred words, prompting me to split a chapter into a lot of smaller parts and they all got REALLY confusing. Second, after getting a major league assembling the fuck of a giant digital Lego set together I pasted it into FFFN via my PC—and second speed nerf: it entered into FFFN the source code. Nowadays I do my writing on the app, and my question is: why the fuck didn't I come up with that sooner?
Live and learn I guess.
Also, the power of music: when I write up the sad parts, I'll play some sad tracks, like Hymm To the Sea, and the fighting parts, epic tracks like Creation and Beyond (Stellaris) or Victory (TSFH), or Final Frontier (Interstellar). The songs help I guess.
Anyways, до скорого!