Rule 2: Stop giving bottle rockets to the younger destroyers, unless you are willing to make repairs on your own - Admiral Garen Crownguard
Johnston was whistling happily as she went to the weekly meeting of Taffy 3. Opening the door she saw her sisterships, Hoel and Heermann, the DE's Dennis, John C. Butler, Raymond, and Samuel B. Roberts, and the CVE's Fanshaw Bay, , White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Kitkun Bay, and Gambier Bay. She entered the room with a cheery greeting, "WASUP!?"
"Johnston! You'll never guess what Sammy B. and White Plains got when they went up to Seattle," Heerman said with a smirk. Gambier Bay, Dennis, Hoel, and Kitkun Bay looked uncomfortable while the other carrier's and DE's looked interested. Johnston looked at her sistership suspiciously, "What?"
"Bottle rockets!" Sammy exclaimed, pulling up the fireworks in question. Johnston looked at her, then at Heermann and White Plains, "You realize this could go very badly?"
Her face split into a massive grin, "What's the plan?"
The device was jerry rigged at best, loose staples holding the sticks loosely in their paths, their fuses bound together with homemade slow burn fuses. There were four rows of the missiles each five wide. The four ships took the launcher to the roof of the newly built escort ship dorm, nearly five stories up, and propped it up on the roof edge, facing roughly in the direction of the grassy area beside the building, nearly fifty feet of unobstructed distance across. They lit the fuses and backed off with wicked grins on their faces. The fuses burned down and the rockets shot into the air quite a ways, before falling to the earth. They didn't hit the ground though, four fell onto the top of the capital ship dorm, another three flew further and collided with the command building with two going through open windows. The rest of the rockets flew in every direction. It wasn't until roughly thirty seconds after the disappointed ships lost sight of the rockets that the first one went off, then the next, until all twenty had exploded.
"We are so screwed," White Plains said simply as the four of them stared glassy eyed at the base as alarms blared and personnel went running.
"So, you two bought bottle rockets from a reservation on your way back from Seattle. You announced it at your Taffy 3 gathering, and decided to set off a small firework show," Admiral Garen said, his eyes closed and his fingers crossed as he sat behind his desk. On either side of his office doors were two formidable officers, Fiora and Missouri, behind the girls were two capital ships, Lexington and Oklahoma. In front of his desk at attention were the four responsible shipgirls and filling the left side of his office where squads gathered for their assignments was the rest of Taffy 3, at parade rest. Garen sighed before continuing, "And most of you didn't think to bring this knowledge to anyone else, knowing what it might cause. Hoel, you are free to go seeing as your the only one of your group who actually went to someone because you thought it was a bad idea."
Hoel snapped to attention and left without a word. As the door closed he laid down their punishments, "Taffy 3, collectively your ice cream privileges are revoked for a month and you are confined to the base. Destroyer Escorts you are on dorm cleaning duties for that time and Escort Carriers, you are on duty in the submarine mess. You're dismissed."
As the rest of Taffy 3 snapped to attention and filed out of the room dejectedly all eyes turned to the remaining four. With a loud slam the two women shut the doors. Garen was looking at the four with a dark smile, his eye twitching, "I was specifically chosen because the politicians thought we could handle you all after Admiral Marrow had his psychotic break. This is the first incident that will call their choice into question and given what I know about you all from your files, it won't be the last. I've been authorized to use any form of discipline that doesn't kill you. I could have Vestal and our other repair ships dismantle you and run experiments on to try and help us understand Magical Sparkly Shipgirl Bullshit, for all the good it will do. However given what Marrow wrote in your records before the incident, I have a different punishment in mind. You four are confined to quarters for a month. Your phone, computer, and video game privileges are revoked. You will be attending extra classes with your instructors behind you. Your time will be managed so that you will wake up, eat, go to classes, eat, attend your extra lessons, eat, carry out your extra duties, report in, and return to your rooms. You will go nowhere else. Every form of entertainment will be removed from your rooms until such time as your punishment is over. the only thing you will be left with is books, and if you desire more you can ask one of your sisters in your morning lessons to bring them to you. Your ice cream privileges are also revoked. Your instructors will escort you back to your rooms. Please give them a reason to use force."
With a glance both women beside the door moved, opening the door before grabbing the shell-shocked shipgirls and guided them out of the room.
