When spending enough time on a seemingly-impossible task, with absolutely no progress to show for it, anyone would get discouraged. As leads were pursued to their maximum extent and results failed to emerge, the crisis that Murray's team were working to avoid became more and more daunting. Conversely, as the weeks started to turn to months things started to seem less… urgent. The Lieutenant Commander's theory that Trinitite didn't have any violent actions planned felt more and more probable as time went on, but that small comfort only partially offset the demoralizing lack of success.

Their civilian help was unusually unanimous in telling them that the lull was normal, that they might not get another reasonable lead for months, but searching for Trinitite was the only duty Murray's division really had. Nashville and the rest of the team couldn't just passively wait for the abyssal to make another mistake. The sailors in their task force, mostly intelligence specialists, had worked with Murray before with a handful of exceptions. If it weren't for Trinitite they'd be pouring over intercepted abyssal communications, reconnaissance photos, and after-action reports. Now, it was police reports, maps of the Seattle area, and any social media posts that might give them a hint as to the abyssal's status. Nashville was starting to realize the men and women around her were probably as qualified in finding Trinitite as she was.

At least she could spot the Wo-class from a good distance. They were desperate enough to resort to aircraft flights at this point, Nashvile and Shangri La taking turns scouring various parts of Washington for signs of a shipgirl. There had been no luck, plenty of false-positives, and no end to the terrible sickness the light cruiser felt every time she went up, but she guessed scrambling to any carrier walking around Puget Sound at least gave everyone else something to do.

They all had different ways to cope with the frustration. Murray had become even more casual, the Lieutenant Commander often spending hours talking about tangential topics with his team. The lengthy discussions about philosophy, the economy, and other abyssals took quite a while to relate back to their query, but eventually did. The enlisted had always been cutting the sting of the terrible situation with humor, but the occasional jokes the Light Cruiser heard were starting to get darker. References she didn't understand ('Maybe the Foundation nabbed her, didn't bother to let us know.') mixed with increasingly unprofessional comments ('I don't know, if I got a piece of that, I'd be keeping it hidden. Maybe we should be checking hospitals for broken hips.') to supplement more serious discussion in their little office.

The Light Cruiser had trouble blaming them. There were times, when she was working here, where her mind refused to focus on her target. Training out in Puget Sound, news from her sisters and their exploits, decorating her apartment, and the mysterious princess in the Falklands were starting to creep into her work hours, instead of her rival she desperately tried to focus on.

Besides, maybe the rude jokes were right. The monster had proven to be incredibly resourceful, and utilizing her looks to secure shelter and supplies didn't seem like too far of a stretch. On top of that, it would be just her luck if her eldritch rival scored before she did…

Perhaps she should lay off on the whiskey next friday night, but that was just another way of handling these mind-grinding weeks. The Light Cruiser just needed more practice in finding her limit, or perhaps she needed a wing… ship, or something. Shangri La hadn't been interested when she'd asked they hit the town together.

"Ma'am?"

Her rangefinders snapped away from the report she hadn't really been reading, looking up to see the division's LCPO.

"Yes, Chief?"

"Mister Muray wanted to talk to you." He motioned over his shoulder.

"Ah, gotcha." Part of her wondered what information he could suddenly want, but she was basically trying to waste time anyways. Hopefully he had finally found something interesting.

The Lieutenant Commander was surprisingly busy when Nashville entered his office. Sheets were falling out of a humming printer, forming a thickening pile of double-sided paper.

"Nashville." He acknowledged, nodding behind her. "Go ahead and close the door."

The Light Cruiser hesitated. For the vast majority of the time, the office door had remained open, Murray wandering out to trade ideas with his division. His philosophy on the Trinitite issue, at least, was that he needed to be as open as possible… with those he was allowed to be.

That he wanted to keep this secret from them meant either this wasn't related to the renegade wo, or it was extremely serious.

"...Aye." She hesitantly replied, the weight in her keel increasing as the door slid shut.

The printer died down as Murray sighed, visibly slouching in his chair.

"Sit down." he loosely motioned to the chair on the other side of his desk, "I don't know if this is good news or not."

Nashville did as he indicated, uneasily easing herself into the cheap furniture.

"Is everything alright?"

"Well, things haven't gotten worse." He tempered, removing his CAC from his laptop and quietly shutting it. "You see, as far as the majority of the military intelligence community is concerned, I'm still on Admiral Underwood's intelligence staff." He turned to the cheap printer, removing the sheaf of paper and fingering through the fresh pages. Bold CLASSIFIED headers shifted as he found the page he wanted, splitting the stack in half and handing one over to the light cruiser. She started reading the information control disclaimer printed on the title page, but suddenly realized she wasn't familiar with the wording.

"Are these… British documents?"

Murray nodded.

"Normally, when we notice an anomaly, we send intelligence on it to our allies to get more perspectives on it. It's what we did when Trinitite hijacked The Lilly, before she made landfall and The Flags decided to cover it up." The note of bitterness in his voice was subtle, but seemed to increase as he sarcastically continued. "Now, a friend from across the pond has continued the tradition."

"Huh." She started leafing through the report, skimming the headers and looking over the attached images. There was a picture of clouds, but none of the pictures of people or warships she'd seen in her own investigation. "So something like Trinitite is happening in Europe?"

"No, thankfully." he denied, a half-chuckle escaping his lips as he shook his head. "This is about the Falklands."

Nashville froze. Was she excited? Terrified? The papers in her hands rustled as she hurriedly returned to the first page, looking for an abstract.

"On October fourth, the Royal Navy submarine HMS Severn was skirting the claimed territorial waters of the Tyrant Cruiser Princess. It was around 'oh two-hundred, so Severn was charging her diesels on the surface as she approached the abyssal-heald islands. On her approach, however, she spotted something strange about the Tyrant Cruiser Princess's anomalous weather."

"Huh… huh." Nashville almost commented, but decided against it. She'd done some research of her own into her abyssal sister, and if one stayed outside the self-imposed exclusion zone, then the layer of clouds that surrounded the island would hardly have been visible. Either the submarine was bad at navigating, or had deliberately entered the Tyrant Princess's territory and this little discrepancy was a poor attempt at hiding her 'mistake.'

It wouldn't be the first time those little brats had jeopardized their mission to sate their curiosity.

"Her real objective was a reconnaissance mission of the Antarctic Peninsula, but rightfully decided this anomaly was worthy of an investigation. Severn dove, approached the islands, then took photographs of the weather phenomena. Unfortunately, she was discovered and sunk by the Tyrant Cruiser Princess's fleet before she could send the photos, and they were lost."

Nashville flinched at the revelation. Normally, her corrupted sister was abnormally peaceful, going so far as to have ships attempt to escort trespassers out of her territory before firing on them, but she could never see Phoenix giving a submarine quarter, given her fate at the hands of one.

"The image… here…" he continued, shuffling to a prominent picture a few pages into the report. "...was taken from the french SSN Suffren's optronic mast, after Severn was resummoned and debriefed thirteen days later."

The image itself was in visible light, the dark, drooping clouds noticeable only because of warm, electric glow.

"That light…" She idly commented. If someone had told her this was a darkened image of the sky over any small town, Nashville would have taken them at their word.

"Doesn't look particularly otherworldly, does it?" He asked. "The spectrum of that light matches those of the streetlamps in Stanley, and the angle seems to affirm that that's the source."

"She's kept the power on?" No other abyssal had done that, right?

"That seems to be the case." Murray affirmed. "I don't know if you're aware, but this might make the Tyrant Cruiser Princess the first that's ever cared about infrastructure."

"...and everyone's wondering why." Nashville finished, connecting the dots.

"Exactly." The spook affirmed. "Odds are, you'd be more uniquely qualified to figure out her intentions."

"Now you admit she might be Phoenix." Nashville huffed, although there wasn't any heat in her words.

"She could be Boise, too." He tempered. "But… I'll admit Phoenix is a possibility. Most of our colleagues in Europe think she's keeping the grid operational - maybe even powering it with one of her minions - for a pet project, like reverse-engineering some human technology there, but they don't know about Trinitite."

That was right. The fact that abyssals wouldn't always kill humans, given the opportunity, wasn't news to Nashville, but to everyone else that was still a novel concept.

"You think she's keeping some civilians alive?"

"That might be too optimistic," Murray admitted. "But hopefully, your perspective on this can get us started on cracking the mystery that is the Tyrant Cruiser Princess."

"Like the name?"

"Exactly." He replied. The Lieutenant Commander produced a manilla envelope from his desk, CLASSIFIED burned into its top and bottom, and handed it over to Nashville. "'Tyrant' isn't a particularly flattering name to choose for yourself."

"I've thought about it, but haven't come up with anything yet." She admitted, shuffling the sheaf of papers to fit them into a folder. "Hopefully this'll help, thanks."

"We can hope." Her commander agreed. His own copy of the packet disappeared into a lockable drawer. A moment passed, before a sigh escaped Murray's mouth. "I'm going to be taking leave next month. You'll have command of the division while I'm down in California. Now, I can't force you to take leave, but once I get back I strongly recommend you take some time off yourself, before the holidays." He nodded meaningfully to the envelope. "Maybe you could do some catching up with your sisters down in San Diego."

"...I see." Nashville replied, her voice weighted with meaning. It obviously wasn't the primary reason, but it was a damned clever way to get her to take a break. "I'll start filling out a chit right away."

"Just make sure you follow information control regulations." He added, making a loose waving motion with her hand. "Only your sisters are need-to-know, keep it closed outside secure areas, that sort of thing."

"Aye-aye." She replied, resisting the urge to add a sarcastic '...Dad' to the acknowledgement. Yes, information control was important, but compared to how much firepower the Navy trusted her with, as well as the secret abyssal, some foreign classified documents seemed paltry in comparison.

"Alright!" He started, leveraging him to his feet. "That's all I've got. You?"

"I'm good." Nashville added. "Thank you, Sir."

"Hopefully something turns up with Trinitite." He commented. "The sooner we deal with this…"

"The sooner we can save my sister?"

"I can't promise that," He tempered, "but I'll recommend we focus on her. Have a good day, Nash."

"You too, sir."

With that, she left Murray's office, propping the door back open as he normally did. The division LCPO looked up from the laptop he'd been working at, the concern on his face fading as he noticed the Light Cruiser's stress-free expression.

"Everything alright, Ma'am?"

"Huh?" She asked, trying "Oh, just a family issue. Not too serious."

"Ash, that's good." He returned to his work.

The cruiser returned to her desk, her own words echoing in her mouth. Before this job, she probably would have brushed the chief off, but now she'd spit out a half-truth without thinking.

God damn it, that pale-skinned flat-top better show herself soon. This spy game was corrupting her!

I'd say sorry for adding an interlude about the Feds, where they don't make any progress towards finding Trinitite, but this was actually a lot of fun to write, which is why it came out pretty quickly. Hopefully, you guys enjoyed it too.

I picked Nashville as a generic shipgirl to serve as an antagonist to Trinitite, but kind of lucked out when I did, I think. Considering some of the baggage her family is carrying, there's a lot of potential that I want to explore, while still tying it into the Trinitite plot. Eventually.