Kept you waiting, huh?
Norfolk Naval Base. 1800 hours.
"All allied units escaped the combat zone successfully, with only minor damage to report overall. However, BLUFOR Heavy cruiser Roon has sustained a moderate hit to her lower abdomen and has split off for a trip to the repair baths. No further damage was immediately apparent through the blood and oil of the Sirens. One asset recovered, damage uncertain, she wears a suit of battle armor unlike any I have ever seen, and... Miss Roon mentioned a similar occurrence with Prinz Eugen when she requested to tag along back to base."
The report was finalized in the crisp tone and formal address that Essex was more than familiar with. She allowed her arms to briefly rest at her sides, still covered in bruises, water, and more salt than the destroyers after a game night. The doorway to what would have been Newman's office was still open, and the familiar form of the Sakura Union Carrier Akagi sat to one side of the desk, her left ear twitching idly even as she listened. On the opposing side of the desk, illuminated by light streaming in from the windows, the Eagle Union heavy cruiser Baltimore steepled her fingers on the desk, her eyes clouded with a posture the commended seriousness as she listened to the carrier give her report. Essex felt her form stiffen even as Baltimore's lamplike yellow eyes scanned her battle-damaged rigging. Lightly, she twitched and saw the corners of the heavy cruiser's eyes crinkle slightly as she broke into a wide smile at the other woman. Before she remarked and closed her notebook.
"Well, you survived and escaped, I fail to see any way the situation could have gone better, to be frank."
Baltimore's tone was strict, and her eyes had moved to the windows behind the commander's desk, she stared evenly at the medical wing of the base. Recently refurbished, the building was old stone and new brick, a harsh clash that caused no end of discomfort to the more aesthetically oriented tastes in the room. But it functioned, and that's all Essex could ask of it.
"What do you think, Firefox?"
Someone less acquainted with the Sakura Empire carrier would have missed the faint stretching of her features as she put on an almost imperceptible frown, even Essex nearly missed it, simply because she was turning as the fox-eared woman's tails stirred restlessly.
"She smelled of blood, iron, and determination. She is dangerous, to this world's state and to future battles involving us. I would even go so far as to say we should have scuttled her. Incinerated what she carries; However, I would not doom another to the flames that claimed Amagi in another time."
"I'm going to pretend I understood most of that, and sum it up as you are cautious, with a trend towards worry over what she will bring to the forefront, yes?"
The fox woman's leftmost two tails twitched, and then flicked idly, a subtle sign of her annoyance.
"To stoop to words that would fit so, yes. She is dangerous, the technology she carries reminds me of that of the black cubes, of the Sirens from below; secrets too dangerous for me to comfortably allow upon the surface."
"I can see and vouch for that. No summons have been successful for anything resembling a modern vessel; Hauer's pet projects best left unspoken, of course."
All three present shuddered at the memories.
"Well, on that lovely note? Essex, you are relieved, get some rest. That's an order."
"Aye, Ma'am!"
The Eagle Union carrier was already making flank speed towards the medical center when she stopped as smoke broke from the harbor. By the time she made it 12 steps, a trio of destroyers was rushing their charge, a woman on a stretcher past her. Blonde, shoulder-length hair, and older, pre-WW2 rigging gave it away instantly. They were the escort mission, which made this woman… Nevada.
The doors to the severe trauma ward slammed to her left, and Essex numbly let a nurse lead her into the depths of the medical center. Nevada's eyes closed, her skin a deathly pallor, one arm hanging by strips of flesh, the other flensed nearly to the bone, rigging cracked and ripped as if some great beast had gotten claws and tendrils inside of Nevada, and those awful, red lines in her veins across a bared midriff, pulsing like angry venom. She didn't recover from her stupor until she felt the warm embrace of the medical baths sinking around her, and saw the familiar face of Roon across from her, sleeping with a towel across her forehead. The Germanic cruiser's eyes and fingers idly twitched in her sleep. Essex let herself sink deeper, her own head just barely above the water at this point, another mission successful, yet it felt for every single woman they brought back safe and sound, another two were left behind or… worse.
"You are quite noisy when you're worried. I can hear the movements from here."
Roon sounded groggy like she'd just woken up, but her steel brown eyes stared daggers at Essex, she moved, albeit gingerly, and grimaced as her hand made its way to the nasty shell wound in her side.
"Since I now cannot sleep anymore… what do you wish to ask? Thine curiosity about something is as clear as you could possibly make it without outwardly stating it."
Essex frowned. Was she really so transparent?
"Alright. Earlier, you mentioned "floaters"; what did you mean by that word?"
Roon forced a smile, but it felt to Essex more like she was baring her fangs, as she spoke in a slightly strained voice.
"Ironblood is not a traditional navy, as you are undoubtedly aware. Many of our vessels were not built. I am not a "strictly real" cruiser. This manifestation was fueled by, something which I don't pretend to understand, but my existence occurs through reverse-engineered Siren technology. It forms part of my lovely twilight, and it allows us to be directly stronger than many of our peers."
The Heavy Cruiser sighed, leaning back in the repair bath with a catlike stretch of her shapely figure. "Most of our girls aren't strictly summoned or built, they are found. Humans who have been converted and infected, corrupted husks. We purified them. I am, or was, someone else once. We are quite literally the past reborn in husks from the future."
Roon paused, and then broke off, casting her sharp gaze to the side and rubbing at the wound with a free claw? Had that been there a moment ago?
"I know I used to have a name, perhaps a family, but I remember only waking on the surface of the waves in the docks at Wilhelmshaven; Lord Bismarck, pulling and dragging me out of the abyssal deep. Such a painful experience, that awakening, worsened by my critical lack of comprehending the basics of living, such as breathing, walking or spoken language. I used a wheelchair for months, even during training."
The cruiser's shockingly personal story left Essex sliding under the water near slackjawed, accompanied by a sad smile on the lips of the ironblood cruiser. This was the most she had ever heard the Teutonic warrior speak, but if this was truly her life experience, Essex could understand the woman's silence.
"I know how you Amerikaner see me; A "Berserker", a rabid animal without understanding or mercy on and off the battlefield." Holding Essex's gaze, Roon smiled whimsically, as if discussing a slumber party. "You may even be right, but even so, I must prove my worth in combat because I do not know even how to be human. Thus, I must fight."
Roon stood abruptly without another word, wrapped a towel around herself, and then she was gone. The veteran aircraft carrier stewed in silence, naught but ripples in the water to show the cruiser's passage.
USS Vestal, the first and most experienced true repair vessel of the US Navy, had seen it all. Her precise hands had fixed everything from the smallest of papercuts to gaping holes in the deck of Enterprise's stomach. She was never one to claim immunity to the casualties of war, but it wouldn't be wrong to say she was used to such.
Until now, at least. The former Collier ship had never thought she'd see such a venomous injury, the repair ship was staring in contemplation at the naked back and lower abdomen of Nevada, splayed out in high resolution photographs on multiple monitors in the ward. Nevada, behind her, was fitfully sleeping in the trauma ward.
"Akashi, have you ever seen something like this?"
"No. No I have nyot."
"Her wounds aren't regenerating, bathwater made her scream like we'd flayed her skin off, and those lines are preventing her rigging from being remov-"
"Vestal. You and I both know what has to be done soon."
"I don't want to do that."
"If you don't then Baltimore will."
"I can't just put her down! Not, not after what her escorts said."
"Of course not, old friend. But her rigging will have to be amputated if you don't make the damned decision."
The slamming of fists into desk announced very simply that if a certain cat didn't shut up, the one getting cut would be her. It conveyed in a single sound how close to snapping the old repair vessel was. Perhaps, it would have all passed, Akashi might have been able to calm down her superior, and former rival. That was not this day, and the little green cat hid behind the table.
"CMO Vestal," a new voice rescued her, "A word, if I may."
The stalwart, imposing form of Baltimore leaned against the door, arms folded at her waist and a stern look in her eyes. Behind her lurked the form of the heavy cruisers escort group, dressed in combat attire.
"Yes. You may. Akashi, see to Nevada's more pressing injuries."
The cat didn't respond verbally, simply turning to the woman who tossed and turned in the chains that held her in midair. Her rigging restrained as angry, violent red lines ran across its surface, the cat nimbly dodged an unrestrained mounting as it twitched violently, lashing out the multi-ton block of steel and ammunition before she readied another roll of duct tape.
"To what do I have to thank to have the honor of hosting the esteemed Admiral Baltimore here?"
The frown on Baltimore's face could have frozen a volcano, as she spoke.
"Neutralize that tongue of yours CMO Vestal. This is important. More so than you can realize."
The repair ship bit back a retort every bit as acidic as a Siren chemical weapon, turning her back to Baltimore and replying in the most passively aggressive way she possibly could.
"Oh very well. What would you have little old me do?"
"Prepare to sortie, scouts from Independence have found our mysterious new target, and she's still wounded."
To say shock flashed across the face of the repair cruiser was an understatement, she whirled on the much taller heavy cruiser, marched up to her at a pace that wasn't seen so much as felt, jammed a finger into her chest, and bluntly stated.
"You know damned well what one of those things did to Nevada. Now you want to pick a fight with a fleet of them!? Have you gone completely insane? Or did you just want to play a sick joke on me? In case you haven't noticed, NEVADA, OUR COMRADE, is HANGING IN CHAINS BECAUSE HER RIGGING IS TRYING TO KILL ANYTHING IT CAN GET ITS MALFORMED GUNS INTO."
By the end of the woman's rant, Baltimore's escorts had backed off, and several nurses and patients were staring at Vestal, who glared furiously at almost all of them. Her glasses flashed dangerously as she stared daggers at the heavy cruiser.
"I wanted to believe you were different. That when you took charge things would be different. That you weren't just the scary, imposing figure people said you were. I wanted to believe that the rumors of you being a leader who gave a damn about the girls under her command were true."
Vestal turned back to face Baltimore, and with a slight waver in her voice, reached out to her office door. For a moment, it looked like she was about to slap the heavy cruiser.
"I see that I was wrong."
The echo of the door slamming shook most of the assembled women out of their stupor, and Akashi's summary ejection from the side room was proof enough that the next woman entering that room would be facing their death.
"That went… about as well as I expected."
"Are you sure about that Admiral?"
"Unfortunately, I doubt it would have gone any better had I not been who I am."
The woman turned to face the hospital, snapped a crisp salute, and simply stated.
"As you were, ladies."
As the bustle of the room filled the air, the tomboyish heavy cruiser strode from the room. Her thoughts specifically turned towards an objective that lay hundreds of miles away, across a dark, foreboding sea.
"Roon."
"Independence~ What an… unwelcome surprise."
The Ironblood cruiser lay against the wood back of a bench, her face turned up at the clouds and a mask over her eyes. She seemed nonchalant, unbothered that yet another Amerikaner was here to pester her with mundane questions.
"Cut the shit Ironblood. I have neither the time nor the patience to deliberate with you. Are you coming, or not?"
The cruiser grinned that famously sadistic smile before she responded.
"Nein. I am staying here. You can do this without my aid."
"Getting cold feet, kraut~?"
Independence's voice was sweeter than ice cream and as poisonous as a dart frog as she spoke.
"Now, what kind of Ironblood representative would I be if I rose to such obvious bait. Now, get those balloons out of my face and leave. You're in my sun~"
The Eagle Union Carrier left, albeit not before muttering a muffled insult in the direction of the cruiser.
Roon waited perhaps 10 minutes, before she stretched, arched her back like a cat, and yawned as she rolled off the bench and lazily picked up her jacket. Turning to face the sea, she grinned a savage and feral smile, purring a single message.
"I hope you'll wait for me~ New one~ My fangs have yet to taste of your succulent, delicious battle~"
While The Dreamwalker Shinano may have awoken from the nightmare, the victim of her impromptu voyeurism had no such luxury. Blue Ridge II gazed with horrified fascination upon the creature before her; it may have once been a "Siren", but the shards and cracks of glowing crimson across it's body told a different story. Moving like a broken puppet, the thing stalked a convoy of Siren mass production vessels and humanoids alike. Her face would have been perfect, unmarred, were it not for a split that ran from forehead to lower jawline, evenly parting her skull into shards bound with red lines shaped like lightning. A thing that might have once been a powerful Siren surface unit hissed over a communications array sprouting from the flesh at the base of her spine. Ugly red swelling marked the gaping wound, but the girl didn't seem to care. On it stalked, glassy eyes shifting independently from another in her crushed eye sockets Her eyes didn't flinch, even as a spray of seawater crashed against the raw flesh of those blazingly hateful orbs.
A clicking series of acknowledgments registered on the long antenna piercing at a 90-degree angle from the temple to the roof of the skull, and that awful thrall stared at her targets. Their allegiance didn't matter. Mother had decreed their deaths, and this thrall would record their screams as she drank their blood and slaked her thirst on their riggings and shells.
Blue Ridge flinched, she couldn't help it, the thing walked on the surface of the waves and ran with nothing but foul machine codelike corruption covering its face. That thing was no longer a living being, and thus it would get no mercy from her. But… why did it seem so unconcerned, even Blue Ridge would have given pause against so many, and that was with an escort fleet.
The tendrils that pierced through the Siren's body and caused her flesh to swell around them were not something new to Blue Ridge. The carrier knew the sight of machinelike corruption all too well, and it was a familiar pain as it broke the girl's form. Her body was marred with implants that dead flesh swelled around in a futile attempt to purge the corruption from deep within her body.
"I serve Our Mother, and I am ready to hunt her prey~"
Blue Ridge scrambled back across the water's surface, as three more figures rose from the depths, each one twisted, mishappen, and reaching for her. One's rotting fingers tangled with a serpentine web of Siren and machine tendrils. Another's legs twisted into a malformed tail, spires, and spikes of metal and red bonds bursting from calves and thighs twisted and torn asunder. Finally, a crimson angel, wings born from twisted legs and arm bones took to the air, her smile as jagged as the rusted metal that fell from her wings.
"And you darling~"
All four of them spoke in horrible, blooming unison, turning gazes on Blue Ridge.
"Are the prey~!"
"Scheisse, she'll be waking soon if she's anything like Eugen…"
Roon's mutters seemed to only make others get out of her way. The smell of the isolation vaults filled her nose as she pushed past the plastic sheeting, a kind of sickly sour antiseptic mixed with the clean scent of the sea. Even Roon had to take a deep breath before she stepped past the thresholds. The women who worked in these rooms were… different, so much time spent apart from the fleet not only changed one, but their time spent cutting into and hacking apart the usually latest victims of the Siren's sick and twisted conversions left very little emotion beyond a cold, detached fury in their voices and faces.
"Ironblood cruiser Roon. Announce the purpose of visit to this environs."
The short girl standing in front of her wore a pair of glasses that flashed in the fluorescent lights up above and the setting sun to the west and east. She wore a stained lab coat, and the thin plating that covered her forearms and legs like a suit of knight's armor conveyed simply that she was a combat repair vessel. The crest of an eagle and the tattoo on her bared upper thigh loudly announced that she was a member of the Eagle Union. The bone saw and array of tools at her belt and in her shorts, as sterilized as they were, were stained a dull, disconcerting shade of brown. The girl's left eye was a deep, brilliant purple, but the right, alongside the right half of her face, was a mess of scar tissue. The remains of that right eye were a blazing, painful, and sadistic grey.
"Huhm." Roon grunted with an eyebrow cocked. "You… surprised me, little one. Mildly impressive."
The girl cocked her head slightly to the side, before responding in a dull monotone.
"Kamerun, visitor present, clear exhibition room two."
There seemed to be no response for a slight moment, then a giggle echoed through the halls, a sadistic, violent giggle.
"Okaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy~ heehee! Our guest is waking up piece by piece~!"
Medusa turned, blankly staring down the halls as a girl skidded past, the unearthly silence broken only by the drips of blood onto the floor from the examination rooms.
"Eagle Union repair vessel, I am Ironblood Cruiser Roon and I come here to see the new arrival. I come to speak with her."
"This response is within acceptable parameters. Follow."
The repair ship turned and headed into the sterile environment of the isolation cells. Roon took a breath and followed behind her.
Isolation vaults, straightjacket cubes, solitary confinement. The walls pressed in on Roon even as she passed under the watchful gaze of armored blast doors and turrets lining the walls. The Eagle Union did a vast majority of research on Siren conversions here, and the bodies tended to pile up. But salvage from their combat forms was… universally useful. She had yet to lay her eyes on Kamerun, but frankly, that was likely for the best.
Being a repair ship is one thing, being a repair ship in the initial stages of the Siren war was entirely another. Roon remembered overhearing USS Prometheus breaking down completely on the shoulders of Tirpitz after another of "her girls" hadn't come back. But that was just war, or so Roon had always tried to tell herself. Those words only rang more hollowly as the halls of the naval bases emptied of the men, women, and ships that once walked them.
Roon wasn't heartless, but she couldn't understand how tender and fragile everyone was. They were weapons were they not? A broken weapon is discarded if it cannot be repaired. Everyone had to know that, so why did the repair ships just… crack apart like rotten wood? Why did they bend until they snapped, and why… why did they become so cold after the Alaskan siege?
"We are here. You are not to leave without escort, I will fetch Admiral Black."
The small repair ship's monotone snapped Roon out of her inner views. Standing in front of her was a steel-plated vault, with a series of plexiglass viewing windows, and a window screen to the outside. In a bed likely more akin to a hospital bed rested the form of the woman recovered earlier. Her helmet lay on the bedside table to the side of her. A solid black plate of glass and carbonized alloys strong enough to likely deflect a salvo from Roon's guns at point-blank range. The woman's long hair was lain out in a single braid tucked to the side of her sleeping form. Even with the sheets tucked up, Roon could sense the activity, like an electrical current, running through her arms and legs and muscles. She may have been asleep, but it wasn't as if her body stopped moving or thinking, but… it wasn't the upper torso that concerned the Ironblood cruiser, it was the series of glowing red lights and cybernetic augmentations at her waist and below. A mess of healed flesh and machine, symbiotically and almost cruelly beautiful in function.
She was advanced, that much was certain, but how much even Roon couldn't hazard a guess. The woman's rigging had shrunk into her physical form, dissolving into a swarm of what had almost looked like flies as she had been lain to rest in that bed. There were no ports on her skin, armored as it was, were it not for the cybernetics obviously integrated into her form, Roon would have believed her to simply be some lifesized doll. She was unnervingly, concerningly still, but… she could see very faint traces of breath in the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest.
Roon's reverie and study of the woman were interrupted by two things, the first was Admiral Black arriving on the scene, and the second was the fact the girl woke up fighting.
Blue Ridge woke up screaming from damaged vocal chords, her arms were free, and so were her legs… and she was already moving, slamming cybernetically enhanced fists into the walls of her containment. Walls that… strangely didn't buckle this time. She was trapped, truly and completely… without another word, the woman curled up on the floor, her braid loosely pooling her hair around her. Then, curled up and staring at her own skin, she began to sob.
"Admiral Black, an honor."
"The same to you Lieutenant Roon."
"I am no longer an officer, nor would my host have preferred that title."
The cruiser was gentle in her reminder, but firm. Roon wasn't that woman, that girl anymore, as she watched the potential target curl up in the fetal position, shivering.
"My apologies, Miss Roon." The Admiral conceded. "Well, what do you make of our newest arrival? Medusa and Kamerun have given their honest appraisals that she is… to be rendered incapable of harm."
Roon paused in her thoughts, staring at the form of the woman inside the isolation vault, curled in the fetal position, and staring blankly at her own knees. It would have been easy to assume her too broken or traumatized to do anything, but Roon had monitored her during the battle. She'd seen shells get through Essex's best attempts to stop them, and she'd seen the outcome of those impacts. The shells had slid off a barrier, a solid light barrier of red and blue that manifested only a few inches off of the woman's armor.
"If I may speak candidly."
"Go ahead."
"I do not believe it possibility to do so. I intend not to doubt the skill of Medusa and Kamerun, but the "skin" she wears is enough to blunt even my fangs."
Admiral Black frowned, running a hand through long black hair now turning grey. She'd say it was from stress, and it likely had something to do with that. But this new quandary was less than pleasant. The woman had to dictate the fate of a woman who for all intents and purposes might be the difference between victory and defeat for all involved in this blasted war. How many children would have to die before the technology from this girl would come back? How damaged was this girl, and most importantly, how much of a risk did she pose?
Roon saw this, and seeing as Black was one of the few American admirals she could sympathize with, she offered a lifeline.
"If I may, Admiral. Prinz Eugen and… myself were found and recovered in similar circumstances; with my personal expertise, may I greet her?"
"...Use your rigging. I won't lose an important ally to this woman."
Roon nodded, but the words felt completely hollow; the cruiser knew that if this woman wanted to actually harm her, it was very likely she would succeed.
The woman who had just entered Blue Ridge's containment cell didn't seem like a hostile party, nor did she seem particularly threatening, at least, not according to the woman's inbuilt sensor suite and incredibly sophisticated series of point defense guns. Her main battery likely exceeded the force of this vessel's entire gun broadside, and that was likely overestimating the other woman's skill.
"Who are you? You are not like one of those… things…"
Roon shrugged her shoulders noncommitedly, letting her dark eyes cascade over the woman. It was at this point, that the fetal position the newcomer had taken finally made sense to the Ironblood cruiser. She wasn't there out of trauma or panic, she was there because it was a position she could springboard herself out of. A position she could lash out and take little recompense. This girl was a fighter, and one used to fighting against all odds. Were they traces of the original host of that body? Was that a leftover of the soul that now inhabited it?
"No, I do not believe so. Although I may look similar in this guise, would you like me to return to my original form?"
The woman in front of her paused briefly, letting eyes of a similar color to the sky briefly consider the import. Roon took great pause as near imperceptible lenses in the woman's eyes contracted and expanded, and she could have sworn she saw a few small pulses of energy in the depths of those cerulean orbs.
But, it didn't make sense! There was no reason to contain cybernetics in the body of a shipgirl, they had no need for the enhancements, especially due to their innate powers once in the rigging! Unless this girl was beyond human in a way that made no sense…
"I would appreciate you returning to your original form, Maker…"
The girl's voice sounded tiny, and scared and timid to Roon, a far cry from the sheer fury she invoked, something that told Roon that… she was almost scared of just the girl? That made even less sense.
Orders stated explicitly she was not to de-rig in the presence of a potential enemy, to not let them gain even slight amounts of insight into the process. At this point… Roon was beyond caring, let Black court-martial her, it wasn't like she could do anything serious, they needed ships too much for her to be discarded.
"I shall adopt a more human form if it pleases you."
Roon missed the slight twitch and the lilt in the unknown girl's tone as she whispered a simple, drawn-out.
"Thank you…"
The Ironblood cruiser's form twitched and shivered, and then her transformation began, the woman's machinery, weaponry, and armaments beginning to shrink and collapse into the pockets of her uniform. Once the clicking stopped, Roon idly threw her shoulders back in a stretch, then relaxed with a deep breath happily.
"Feels much better~!"
"It pleases this unit to see a Maker in the living…"
The strange ship was still muttering the strange and monotonous tones which Roon had now given up on identifying, but… it was more the tone of her voice and the shy, bashful nature of her tone that had aroused Roon's curiosity…
"You call me a "maker". What does that mean?"
When… the Maker, the human spoke to Blue Ridge, she scarcely even believed it could be true, a living, real human being! While she had been completely covered in fearsome machinery and guns, Blue Ridge could still hear the breathing! She could see the woman's chest rise and fall with every motion! But… then she asked what a Maker was, and Blue Ridge had to hide her confusion, obviously this must be some sort of test!
"But, a Maker is simply you!"
Satisfied, she'd made the correct answer, she didn't notice the door beginning to open, nor the look of extreme confusion that flashed onto Roon's face soon after the announcement.
"Newcomer, I am Admiral Black of the remaining human defense forces in this sector. It is good to see you and Miss Roon getting along; all the better for me to solve the mystery of your very existence."
The chamber echoed with silence, followed by...
"THERE ARE MORE MAKERS LIKE YOU!?"
The others winced- to Roon, it sounded like a dozen roaring and flashing railguns that revertebrated in her skull- as the enigmatic woman leapt to her feet in sheer joy. The excitement mixed oddly with the towering, heavily plated form and serious yet- cute? Yes, cute voice.
Roon and the Admiral shared a long moment of confusion.
"I… ah… perhaps, you could identify yourself to us?" Black offered tentatively.
"Hai! I am YorHa's Heavy Assult Supercarrier, Blue Ridge II. Please, g-g-Give us your Orders-ssszzzt, Admiral."
For Roon, every alarm sounded at the deep, mechanical tone overlapping the woman's voice. For Admiral Black, the word "Supercarrier" overcame with a war-ending jolt of fear, confusion, and perhaps even some hope.
""S-SUPERCARRIER?!""
Suspended from a radio tower, Prinz Eugen flashed awake, rubbing her pounding, aching head, she briefly looked around herself, and realized she was over 200 feet off the ground, and specifically, atop one of the radio broadcast towers on the small island fort and replenishment base of CF-Echo-9'er. She muttered blankly to herself.
"Again… again I find myself out of quarters, Roon will have my head for sleepwalking again…"
She began to exhaustively and carefully make her way down, not noticing the small, telltale flicker of a sickening blue color nestled within the exposed circuit board of the radio tower's controls.