I've got all this blood and nothing to use it for.

Well, maybe it'll be the new mermaid bones.

Have an early chapter. You may or may not have earned it.

The Review Box:

MarauderPrime12: Of the chapter, or of the Rant?

Of the chapter, Aqua fell asleep waiting, and then woke up to five shipgirls trying to take credit for the Installation type they just tossed on her.

Of the Rant, I took the Sue test when I wrote the pre-chapter, then took it again before I posted the chapter. The results changed, and since it's a chance, not a sure thing, I'm being paranoid my shit luck is going to screw me over in terms of writing a Sue without knowing (as it tends to do).

And thank you.

AmythestPone: Yep, those are the pre-War MAC specs.

I theorized the Series 8 MAC to be somewhere above pre-War battleship MACs (Halo-verse doesn't really have battleships, but a battleship is basically a scaled-up cruiser with more gun on it, so it's ostensibly a bigger carrier, equaling a larger MAC) and SMACs. The standard frigate, cruiser, carrier, battleship, and such MACs has been upgraded to reach 4% lightspeed at minimum (i.e. frigates) thanks to Covenant and Forerunner tech research, so, yep. I put it at somewhere north of 20%, to be honest. Post-war SMACs can probably hit 35 or higher. The shell size and composition remains the same, though.

Was Halo 5 good? I thought 4 was okay, but nothing is better than Reach and 3.

Captiosus: Oh yeah, I think I had the wrong math.

Whoops.

War Historian-Freedom2134: *grabs notepad* Do tell.

(after a PM) *frantic scribbling*

Uhhh, even with the presumably technological advances made post-Covenant, that is really stretching it. A second Infinity is easier (and in the pipeline) because the resource requirements are mapped out, but this...

Uh, this would actually be Yamato. Built more for dick-waving than combat.

The glassing, I don't see happening (remember, humanity was on the receiving end of it). Eight SMACs on a ship would require more energy than Sol (or an average sized main sequence star) currently outputs (a fuckton), since SMACs have whole planetside power plants slaved to them, and double the weapons would mean it's ammo expenses would be somewhere in the ballpark of 16 quintillion, at least.

Carrying new ships is what Infinity and her sister already do, and the idea is great (which is why I plan to have more ships that can carry other ships, but on a smaller scale), but it's also a resource drain- it costs more to build a frigate/cruiser wing than even a Saber squadron.

The idea is cool, just a little resource unfeasible. But hey, I'll see if I can tweak it into something workable.

Thanks for the suggestion anyways!

Thanks to Fierce Striker, D1NGORED, War Historian-Freedom2134(long name), Halfgreave, Raider5000, and gravitywells for the follow/favorite(s).

Journal of Admiral Steele; January 9, 2558

I began today with tentacles wrapped around me and an Abyssal buried in my chest. Thankfully, when it became apparent I was awake, she unwrapped herself from me and let me go about my wake-up.

With a cheerful 'Good morning, Admiral' and a sunny smile.

Christ.

I sent a message to Phoenix asking about maybe communicating with the Abyssals, since we'd captured one that could speak. They promptly called on my video relay, which I answered with our new guest sitting on my lap. The three Abyssals we'd already captured were on the other end, with the humanoid one holding onto what they were calling on.

"I! Ro! Ho! So that's where you went!" The girl exclaimed. One of them chittered back. "Don't give me that 'I got overpowered, Iso' crap! They went after me, and they had lasers!" More chittering. "I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT!"

"I am reminded of talking to incompetent commanders." I muttered, watching the show go on. The Abyssal in my lap was now having a shouting match with the light carrier, who I think was Ho. "Iso, huh?

"Eeep!" 'Iso' was reminded of my presence as I spoke up, Ho giving me a wave on the viewscreen. "Er… yeah. Isolated Asteroid Princess. I'm the lonely Installation-type. So they designated me that and sent me out there." She said, poking her fingers together.

"...whoever you work for sounds incredibly creative." I settled for deadpanning. "So, you can understand the nonsense they say?"

"Yeah. Can't you?" She seemed pretty surprised, though I suppose it's because they can understand us.

"My translator program hasn't had the Abyssal patch installed yet." I snarked. "I think my real hang up is that you guys act like territorial eldritch abominations."

"El- what?" I dropped my face into my palm.

"Moving on…"

Isolated Asteroid Princess (or Iso, as she preferred to be called, which was understandable) was forthcoming in information, but not quite knowledgeable. For one, she didn't know where the main Abyssal base was. She was also rather innocent, as innocent as you can get as one of the things, I guess.

Those tentacles for one? Not for any hentai jokes, but for latching onto an asteroid to convert it into an outpost.

After an interrogation disguised as a conversation, I sent her off, forwarded the intel to HIGHCOM and Phoenix, and went off to find something to do.

I took a walk. It was a nice walk. I saw the sights, space, more space, the planet below us I sometimes forget is there, Kongo leaping at me at 3:00…

Duck.

There was a rather loud SLAM! once she hit the window, but I wasn't too worried. Fibrosteel-reinforced glass was real tough to break. You had to pretty much set off a bomb. And there's emergency depressurization sealants anyways. About the only thing that would really happen would be Kongo would have to fly back around and I'd have to look into fixing it.

Although getting jumped by a battleship is starting to get old.

Today's sortie is into Subsector Bravo, some recon from, say, carriers, while the heavy hitters go back through Subsector Alpha and clean up somewhat. Iso mentioned being the only Installation-type in the area. But she did mention some heavier marauding types. Heavy cruisers, frigates, maybe even a mythical battleship. Capture if possible, otherwise kill. Recon is only engage if spotted, and book it back once pursuit is dropped.

I think I might be giving Phoenix too much of a good thing. If I call and find the eggheads ass-deep in orgasm, I'm ringing HIGHCOM and requesting an inquisition.

The fleet left soon enough, and I was stuck on a space station with nothing to do but wait. Again.

I had a solution to my problem, of course. Video games. To be specific, Stardew Valley. If anything it was almost like running this place. Minus the fact that there ain't no male parts round here, and it's a game about farming in a small town, not running a highly-classified science experiment being used to combat an alien race not even ten years after almost getting xenocided by a fucking cult.

Zealotry is bad, m'kay.

Needless to say, when I looked back up, the fleet was due back. I headed down to the launch area to hear the news.

Alpha Squadron came back with some fun to their names, and four new Abyssal types. While two were cruisers, and one was a frigate, the real interesting one was the carrier struggling against the bonds slightly.

"Amie!" I heard Iso call from behind me. Both my and the fleet's eyes zeroed in on the Abyssal as she ran up to the carrier type.

"Hello, Iso." 'Amie' sighed. Her voice, like Iso's, had a grating edge to it, but unlike Iso's, hers sounded more mature. "They got you too, huh?"

"Yeah." She started pouting again. "I liked that asteroid too."

I ignored the squee coming from various shipgirls, and went to go interrogate 'Amie'.

"So going by Iso being Isolated Asteroid, I'm presuming 'Amie' is a nickname?" I asked. She made a face.

"Yes. Armored Carrier Princess."

"Admiral Aqua Steele. I'm the caretaker of this operation, and yes I meant what I said!" I responded to the indignation my 'caretaker' comment had kicked up. "You drive me to drink on a daily basis!"

"Harsh, but true." I heard someone say.

Amie stared at me for a second. "I offer you the deepest of sympathy."

Tonight everyone on base has been called to the now completed not-bar, which I've been completely ignoring recently (common problem), for the opening/excuse to drink ceremony.

I call it how I see it, that's the way my mind works.

Houshou had really pulled out all the stops. She'd even dragged the R&D ships here, with Akashi grumbling about upgrades needing to be tested, Luna taking the excuse to wear a form-fitting dress under her coat (well, even more form-fitting... somehow), and Aether hiding in a corner with a laptop.

It was kind of loud, what with all the destroyers there yakking it up. I was starting to wonder if I'd be able to hear myself think when the sound of someone tapping a mic cut through the wall of noise.

"Ahem, attention, test one two." A shipgirl I hadn't seen yet spoke into the microphone. "Hey everyone! I'm Naka, the new idol of the fleet!" I raised my eyebrow. That hadn't been brought up either. "W-well, once the paperwork clears anyways. She finished, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck.

"But I'm here to provide some music for the opening of!... Of…. Name?"

"Houshou's Not-Bar!" Arkansas called from her table.

"The Not-Bar! Here we go!" Then some club music came over the radio. And not that crap that all sounds the same. I'm talking smooth lounge, the kind where you imagine a room full of cigar smoke and pool tables.

When Naka started singing, she actually fit the music well. I figured from her voice that she'd be off-pitch, but she did a deep, relaxing voice surprisingly well.

"Hmmm." I mused as I sat back, glass of whiskey in my hand. "She is quite good… I suppose she can have the 'fleet idol' job. I don't think anyone else was asking." Beside me, Hood snickered.

"Hey, there, Steele." A bottle was thunked onto the table in front of me, followed by a… Italian heavy cruiser. The bottle held a gallon of wine.

"So I heard you drink a lot, eh?" The cruiser said as she pulled out two glasses, pouring wine into them, then sliding one towards me. "Well, I'm Pola, and I take my title of hardest drinker seriously."

"Really?" I asked. "With that weak grape juice? I trained my liver on Malekgolo blood, that's barely going to do shit." Pola only smirked as she raised her glass at me. "But hey, you wanna be fleeced, your head." I drained my whiskey glass, then grabbed the offered poison. We clinked glasses, and drained them like shots, glasses thumping the table at the same time.

"Marsala. Interesting try." I said, to Pola's knowing grin.

"I think I like you." The self-proclaimed booze-hound said as she tapped her refilled glass against mine.

"No need, to be fu-nny..." Naka sang as the night drew on.

"And she thought she could out-drink me." I laughed.

"Well, she tried." Hood shrugged as we walked back to my quarters. Though Pola had put up an admirable (heh) effort, I had had to pull her out of the not-bar so she wouldn't drown in a pool of drool after she'd passed out into a drunken torpor. Dropping her off in the medbay to sleep it off, Hood had insisted upon walking me to my room before she either returned to the party or went to bed herself.

It was nice, walking along the artificially beautified station, but seeing the lights dim in accordance with Terran day cycles was a nice touch. Only the best for the UNSC. The stars shone above us as light reflecting off Formante's moon from Alpha Scorpii gently illuminated our path… and the blonde battlecruiser walking beside me. She was rather… cute, if in a mature way. She tended to quirk the right side of her mouth up when she was near me, and she seemed more at ease by my side now than when I had seen her earlier. As we came to my quarters, I thanked her for walking with me.

"It's no problem Admiral." She replied. "I'm only doing what a bodyguard would do."

"Well, I know any important person back home wouldn't object to having you as a bodyguard." I replied. Then I leaned in and kissed her on the forehead, smirking as I watched her face color. "I know for a fact you're prettier and more skilled than any for-hire out there. Goodnight." And I walked into my room.

I believe I prefer the taste of Jack Daniels to Kahlua. And my liquor not quite as sweet as that.

Alpha Scorpii is a real star. It's the fifteenth brightest star in the sky, and the brightest star in the Scorpio constellation, which, coincidentally, is rather close to the Sol system in the Orion Arm. It's also larger in diameter than Mars' orbit. Incidentally, it's also binary. So some StarFax™ being dropped on you all.

Today was kind of easy to start, but not finish. I probably spent the majority of my time on the middle and end, after learning Iso's name.

For a bit I was thinking I had my dates confused, but then I checked the Halo timeline and figured out I had them correct. For one, the 'seven years' line in chapter 4 I thought was wrong, but Aqua's 20 now, and since the Covenant War would have been going on for twenty-five years at that point, and the UNSC was starting to get desperate, she was fast-tracked into the Marines. Meanwhile, Terra-B312 was recruited into the SPARTAN III program at the same time, likely what lead to her being fast-tracked, since she didn't make the SPARTAN cut, but was related to someone who did. Probably the only time ONI wasn't a bag of shit in my backstory. Though 13 isn't 'child soldier', it's still rather young to have seen active service, so anyone younger than 15 was held back until they were somewhat older. Remember, humanity had more planets than just Earth, there were over 150 billion humans by the time Harvest happened. Hence why space colonization is a good solution to overpopulation. Hell, even if we just colonized the Sol System we'd have more living space. Well, the gas planets might be hard, but space stations. Halo 5 does not exist, and Halo 4 hasn't happened yet.

Please direct any whiny comments on how 'that's not how colonization works' to my inbox, where they may or may not be debated/ignored. (Hint: if you call me stupid or something from the Book of Victimhood Accusing™, it's ignored. If you present an actual argument, it's debated.)

On a different note, I finally finished the first chapter of my third attempt of my first story, RE: Project RWBY. I posted it last Friday. Give it a look if your like my sense of humor.

This chapter is posted on President's Day, AKA the birthday of the greatest 'Merican to ever live, George Washington. Interesting thing about him, it's actually illegal to outrank Washington in the US Military. He's the only Six-star General in the command structure. He does not, however, hold a Naval rank, since the Navy didn't exist until after he stepped down from Presidency, but you still can't outrank him.

'Merica.

Now excuse me, I have a singularity to sort out.