Chapter 2: Devonport Fleet

"Commander," the greeting had Lauren snapping a salute towards Commodore Shipperley. "Do you know why you were called here?" The man continued.

The commander shook her head slightly as she dropped her salute. "Not yet sir, all I was told was you had requested my presence here post haste and had both already cut orders to that effect and had a car sent to collect me." She paused for a moment, studying the older man's face. "I presume that it had something to do with the attack on Plymouth and my family here."

"You are half correct, Commander Glenn," the officer replied. "More specifically though, it has to do with those that fought off the attacks." He waved his hand towards the four other people in the room, all girls, one looking like a young woman, the other three looking around fifteen, though two of the younger trio were familiar to her.

"Megan? Sally? What are you two doing here?" Commander Glenn asked, her brow scrunching slightly in confusion as she looked down at the two girls. She turned back to the officer, "Commodore Shipperley?"

Commodore Shipperley met her gaze easily. "Commander, let me introduce you to the beginnings of your new command. Angela Kilburn, HMNB Devonport," he indicated the young woman in an older navy uniform.

As the woman stepped back, Shipperley indicated the blonde teen. "Robyn Stevens, HMS Zenith, pennant number R95," this time the fourteen year old in a cadet working uniform nodded.

"And you obviously know the other pair, Megan Jones, the new 'Rhyfelwr' of Plymouth and Sally Jones, newly awakened HMS Zephyr pennant R19." Both her nieces were wearing what looked like their cadet uniforms.

Glenn looked over at the Jones twins, one eyebrow climbing towards her black hair. "Awakened?" she asked.

Sally nodded, blue tips on her own black hair brushing against her shoulders. "During the battle, Aunt Lauren, some of their ships attacked Meg and me, we fought them off, but… normal humans couldn't unless they got lucky. We got lucky."

"You two are hardly 'normal'," Lauren pointed out. "And it's 'Commander' while we're on duty, Sally, the same as on the Dragon, while we had her," she said gently before returning her attention to the base commodore. "You said they were my command, sir?" she asked, getting a nod from the older man. "Why was I called here to take command instead of shipping them down to Portsmouth?"

Shipperley sighed. "For one thing, both Megan and Devonport are strongest here; we are currently standing in part of HMNB Devonport while Megan is linked to the city as I understand things."

Both Angela and Megan nodded at the Commodore's comment.

"To go with that," Shipperley continued, "not only does Admiral Collingwood have more than enough shipgirls at Portsmouth, likely beyond what the base can support, but so does Admiral Cunningham up at Scapa Flow. As more shipgirls appear, they will likely be sent here or to HMNB Clyde before being spread to recommissioned naval bases throughout the Isles, those that aren't stationed overseas."

He took a breath and let it out slowly. "There's also more to it than that. We tried calling the twins' parents and got no response, we're not even sure where they might be right now since their house was empty with evidence they had left in a hurry and you are down as their next of kin, and you've had experience both in commanding and handling shipgirls which is sorely lacking on this base."

He looked over at the commander. "There's also the fact Robyn is an orphan, and while Angela is old enough to live alone, it would likely be on the streets for her as well."

"So this is nepotism, sir?"

Shipperley shook his head. "No, Commander, it isn't. I'll grant you, there might be others better suited to commanding shipgirls in general, but not only are you those girls' family, you also likely know more about their capabilities and history than any other officer I could call. You are, literally, the only person I can call; especially since HMS Dragon sunk you're out a ship.

"I'll be honest with you, Commander, you were already on the list for potentially getting a shipgirl task force as it was, the fact one of your nieces turned out to be one just accelerated things somewhat and right now, we need every able commander we can get to ensure these girls not only learn about the modern navy if they're not already aware, but also ensure they're capable of working in the Royal Navy as it stands, even if we are stuck relying on World War 2 era weapons and tactics."

Lauren gave the four girls a look and sighed, it wasn't as if she really had a lot of options, particularly if her brother and his wife were missing. "Alright, where do I set up?"

Sitting down on an overstuffed chair in an undecorated office room, Lauren looked at the pair of teens in front of her. "How are you holding up?" Given it had been only a few days since the attack on Plymouth by the abyssal forces, and the changes that had brought, she wasn't holding out too much hope.

Sally shifted in her seat, raising her shoulders in what might have been a shrug. "Just… numb right now, Aunt Lauren." She huffed out a sigh as she leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her knees and letting her head hang as her twin sister leaned against her. "Mom and Dad are… hopefully stuck in Avalon then there's everything else going on."

"It is a lot to take in, even for me," Lauren said softly, reaching over to clasp her niece's hands. "We'll get through it though, the three of us." She smiled slightly as her niece lifted her head up. "I know you two will need to go back to school on Monday, but there is something I did want to talk to you about."

"What do you need, Aunt Lauren?" Megan asked, raising her head from her twin's shoulder.

Lauren reached up, rubbing a hand through both girls' hair. "Well, besides letting me know if you feel there's something wrong, girls, can I count on you to both look after any new shipgirls we get and to give me advice or suggestions to ensure we don't have too many shipgirl related problems, particularly ones to do with not understanding the modern world, or at least the modern navy?"

The twins shared a looked for a moment, communicating silently between themselves before turning back to their aunt and nodding.

"Good," Lauren sighed. "I don't know what the Commodore or Admirals will want us to do in terms of organisation yet, but, Sally, can you watch out for the shipgirl side of things? I know you're still in school, but having someone I trust watching over the girls would take some weight off my mind."

"Can do, Commander," Sally responded with a nod.

Lauren nodded, turning to Megan. "Megan, I know you probably know more about the supernatural than most Intel pukes would, can I trust you to keep an eye on it?"

Megan nodded. "I'll see if I can talk to Lyrene when she shows up again," she said.

Closing her eyes briefly, Lauren nodded. "Okay, I'll see about getting you both offices at HMS Drake near wherever they put me." She stood, ruffling the girls' hair again before heading for the door.

Scrubbing her hands over her face, Sally groaned as she flopped into the chair in front of her computer at half-twelve at night. It really was far too late to be up, but if she were honest, she doubted she was going to sleep tonight.

Too many changes too quickly. First her parents seemingly vanished – hopefully they were alive, and had gotten to Avalon with her grandparents – then her waking up as a shipgirl, her sister becoming a Rhyfelwr like their great-grandfather, their aunt becoming their commander (since they were no longer 'cadets') and a shipgirl sister ship.

Groaning tiredly, she blinked as her computer chimed an incoming call. Clicking on the alert, she blinked at the screen that opened up displaying the worried faces of three other girls, one a couple of years older than the other two, with her hair done up in buns on either side of her head, one with russet red hair and wireframe glasses and the third with black hair like the first, but done in a short ponytail that left two locks down in front of her ears.

"Hi girls," Sally moaned.

"Sally-chan, are you alright?" asked the ponytailed girl.

"What happened, Sally-chan? You usually call much earlier than this." The other Japanese girl put her two cents in. "You also look terrible."

Sally snorted, and then sighed. "Yeah, thanks Hikaru, Rika, it's just… been a really bad weekend so far."

Hikaru blinked as the younger girls gasped. "Are you sick or something, Sally-chan? Do you want us to send you anything?"

"Not sick… just a crappy weekend with some really bad stuff, like almost dying, again." Shifting, she straightened up, the light from the monitor bathing a face paler and thinner than it had been a few days before, her blue eyes lacking their usual life.

The three other girls shared a worried look across their screens.

"You're looking at the newest of the British destroyers, HMS Zephyr, pennant number R19," she sighed, rubbing one eye with the heel of her hand. "Last day or so has just been pretty shite between everything this weekend."

The three girls shared a look through their web cams. "Wow," the redhead muttered, "How bad was it? Was it something to do with the 'honey trap' some of the British shipgirls set up?"

Sally nodded. "Yeah… they set it up in Plymouth, guess where I live." Huffing out a sigh, she ran her hands over her face again. "Right now, I'm up far beyond what I normally do and Megan wants to shove her sword up certain people's arseholes."

"Oh… damn… yeah, I can see why it would have been bad, though nearly killed again?" Hikaru asked.

Sally nodded. "I Awoke because I'd been shot and wasn't willing to just die, Megan had already been hurt trying to protect me from pair of abyssals. She Awoke nearly the same time then we found another shipgirl who nearly got eaten."

"Ouch," Rika flinched. "I know you two attract people trying to kill you, but that's really some crap luck."

Kaylie frowned, adjusting her glasses slightly. "What about your parents?" she asked. "When I Awoke to save my brother, my parents weren't exactly happy I'd be in the front lines."

Shaking her head, Sally shrugged. "At this point, fuck knows. Hopefully they're in Avalon with Mom's parents, I doubt even abyssals would willingly piss off a fae court, much less their high court, but gods know what they'd think about everything."

Taking a breath, she let it out in a sigh. "That's actually why I'm using a different computer right now, I'm at my aunt's place since the police have my parents' taped off and we can't get in yet after it caught at least one shell and my parents are gone." She snorted softly. "Hell, Megan broke one abyssal's knee for her then stabbed a bitch."

"Wait…" Hikaru held up a hand towards the camera. "Your sister killed an abyssal before she Awakened? What the hell did she Awaken as if she managed that?"

"A Rhyfelwr – a Karas for you girls – and two of them actually, though the first broke her shoulder and the second broke several of her ribs," Sally replied.

Hikaru frowned. "A crow…?" she trailed off. "Oh, right, the city guardians."

"So what happened?" Kaylie asked.

Sally frowned, trying to recall the fight and what had happened during it. "As for what happened, well, I might've punched one's head in, one of the human types… uh… I punched one with a single horn and a choker that looked like a lower jaw, took her block off for her.

"After that we ran for the base before being ambushed by one with a skull hat and what looked like a 'sexy' army outfit… two hands with twin turrets on their backs," Sally explained. "She ended up stabbing it with one of the knives we got from Gran before one with a black dress and a horned mask shot her into a wall and broke her ribs before she took it down."

She shifted slightly, frowning thoughtfully. "Later on we got ambushed by a group and when we Awoke there was this woman practically all in white. I think she was sitting on a throne of turrets when we first saw her."

"Okay so that's an Escort Princess, Destroyer Water Demon, Light Cruiser Princess and Air Defence Princess if I'm remembering the briefing on their types correctly…" Kaylie whistled, impressed. "Damn, you weren't kidding about shit days, I'm surprised you managed to do any of that, much less most of it before Awakening."

Sally shrugged slightly. "You know us, Kay, life and death situations are an about twice yearly event that ranges from arsehole humans to demons, though admittedly the abyssals were new." She frowned slightly, knuckling her eyes again. "What did you mean earlier though? About saving your brother?"

"What Kaylie-chan means is that we – all three of us – are also shipgirls. I'm Fubuki, Hikaru-chan is Naka and Kaylie-chan is the USS William D. Porter," Rika explained, making Sally blink several times.

Looking over at Kaylie's image on her screen, Sally arched an eyebrow. "You're really Willie D., Kay?" She got a nod from the redhead. "Given what I know of the history, how much trouble does that cause?"

Kaylie sighed and shook her head. "More than I'd like," she admitted. "I'd love to be able to go back in time and beat whoever started some things with a bulkhead. I mean, most people think I have issues with depth charges or torpedoes because of the things on Wikipedia or sites like it."

"It's Wikipedia," Hikaru commented dryly, "Though they are somewhat better than some of the other 'wikis' around."

Kaylie huffed out a sigh. "I checked my logs, unless someone scrubbed the incidents, the only one that really came up was the torpedo and I'm almost certain the one running that launcher had something against the president or someone on Iowa. He was dumped off at the next port we docked in after my captain investigated the incident."

Scowling at the screen, she pulled her glasses off to rub the bridge of her nose. "There's nothing else about incidents with Iowa or my weapons being used by mistake that I can find."

"Didn't you actually save Iowa from a bunch of kamikaze idiots during the Pacific campaign?" Rika asked, a dark eyebrow arching over hazel eyes. She got a nod from Kaylie.

"Yeah, but they don't put the fact I got the shit bombed out of me by kamikaze pilots off one of the IJN carriers, twice – in the stuff on Wikipedia – only the crap I got. Hell, I was at Samar, I was the one that saved Johnston's stern, but is there anything about it online?" Kaylie snorted expressively.

Rika frowned slightly. "Half of everything isn't online for one reason or another," she commented.

"Honestly, I know the site is little more than shit, but you'd expect at least some of the more interesting things to be on there but most of it seems to be hearsay or urban legend…" Kaylie trailed off for a moment and shrugged, "well, naval legend."

"We all have issues, Sally-chan, as Rika-chan mentioned, we're all shipgirls with everything that brings with it," Hikaru said, shifting slightly.

Rika nodded silently, allowing Hikaru to explain.

Hikaru frowned, looking down at her keyboard. "The Sendai-class apparently having terrible taste in clothes – you would not believe how many traffic cone jokes I've heard due to what I have to wear for the public," she said, the look on her face showing how little she liked whatever the outfit was.

"Orange and white with brown skirts," Rika commented.

"One of my sister ships can't stand being touched, even just bumped in the halls and the other…" Hikaru trailed off for a moment. "I'd be lying if I didn't think she was both an idiot and a slut at times. A lot of the other shipgirls call Sendai-nee a 'yasen-baka', and I can't really blame them. She's also the worst kind of technophobe you can imagine."

She sighed, shaking her head. "That's without the fact that I seem to be one of the few that can interact with normal people, and I don't know how it happened, but I got dumped being the 'idol of the fleet'. It's… headache inducing."

"What Hikaru-chan means is that she has to act all happy and cheerful to the point that Pinkie Pie would probably be reaching for the nearest hard drink, especially during the streams she does," Rika explained.

Hikaru shook her head. "The streams aren't too bad, it's the rest," she said.

Rika rubbed a hand over her face. "Meanwhile I get to deal with someone I'm not entirely sure on whether she's happy or sad at times and the 'Nightmare of Solomons', who will 'poi' your ear off. I think most of us just shrug and go with it."

"Yikes! Well, I'm kind of glad I've only got Zenith, who doesn't seem to have any real habits yet, and Devonport, who seems to like Monty Python, considering she decided to sneak by 'silly walking' out of herself to engage the abyssals that managed to land, at least officially." Sally shifted slightly in her seat.

Grimacing internally, she watched the other three's faces. None of them had revealed who the others were, so it didn't feel right telling them that unlike in the official report she had seen Angela had already been living outside the base, and had only survived the destruction of her home due to awakening rather than having appeared in the base proper and 'silly walked out' or that Robyn was an orphan.

Why were they not saying? What was the official line about shipgirls that required their civilian identities to be hidden from the public? Were they not supposed to reveal the identities of their comrades to those from other countries? Sally frowned as the questions bounced around her mind.

"So what happened to you with that mess, anyway?" Kaylie asked, drawing Sally's attention back to the conversation.

Sally took a breath and let it out slowly. "Okay, you three know about the 'honey trap', right?" She got nods from the other three. "Well, most of the fight was outside the city, but a few light cruisers and lighter managed to slip the net and raided us." She frowned, thinking back over the past few days.

"I mentioned the big ones Megan and I ran into earlier, but there were a bunch of whale-like ones with the last one we encountered, well… we killed them and found Zenith hiding in an alley apparently she had an encounter with another abyssal where she was nearly eaten." Sally paused for a moment to get her thoughts back in order.

"After that, we continued on to Devonport and found them under siege by what I'm guessing were infantry types. We fought them, using our hedgehogs – the depth charge launchers not the animals – as artillery to relieve the siege and got called in by Commodore Shipperley, since he is the commander of Devonport," she continued, frowning at the screen in front of her.

"A few hours later, after he introduced us to Devonport, who was an installation class kanmusu, we found out that our parents' home was damaged and our parents were gone, with a note saying they had retreated to Avalon. After that Commodore Shipperley brought our aunt in both as our CO and as our next of kin," she finished, glossing over a lot of the details she couldn't fully recall.

"Your parents are missing?" Hikaru asked softly, getting a nod in return. "Damn… I-I don't know about Rika-chan or Kaylie-chan, but if you need me, I'm here."

"We all are, Sally," Kaylie said. "Considering I almost lost some of my family when I awoke, I know how it feels to some degree."

Rika nodded. "I don't even know who my parents are, so I can understand not having them. We're here for both of you."

"Thanks girls," Sally said softly, reaching up to rub away some tears that leaked from her eyes. "Given the note the police found, we think we know what happened, but they're still stuck and gods know if they'll get back anytime soon." She sniffled before letting out a breath. "Hey, any chance we could do something? I doubt I'm going to sleep tonight."

"There's some games we can play, but we might be called for patrol," Hikaru replied.

"Doesn't matter, I just need something to focus on right now."

Hikaru frowned, pulling a pocky stick from a box. "Before we do, who is your aunt?" she asked as she placed the stick in her mouth, chewing slowly.

"Commander Lauren Glenn," Sally responded, getting blinks from the other girls and nearly causing Hikaru to spit the pocky stick back out.

"I-I thought she bought it when the Dragon sank," Kaylie muttered.

Sally shook her head. "She didn't, Dragon went down, but she got everyone, dead included, off and she volleyed her missiles and wiped the abyssals out."

Kaylie whistled softly. "Dayum, that's pretty badass, then again, she was the Abyssal Spooker's ship, so I guess it makes sense." She paused, frowning. "Huh, I think that only leaves that Captain Drake guy on the Dauntless that's really been doing well against the abyssals for you guys, at least out of the actual ship crews."

Rika snorted softly. "Better than anywhere else, though I think our teitoku and our supply officer did some, but they never had enough of a record to get a nickname out of it."

Hikaru nodded slowly. "True," she admitted. "But we can probably talk about it later, you wanted something to play, Sally-chan? What about Left 4 Dead 2?"

"I could go for slaughtering some zombies, especially after this weekend," Sally replied. "Let me get it downloaded onto this thing if it isn't already since it's been a while since I used this machine and I'll join a game."

"So this is your school?" Robyn asked as she stood beside Sally and Megan at the gated entrance to a rather large grey stone building styled somewhat like an old church or castle.

Megan nodded as she adjusted her black blazer. "Yup, Plymouth College, we're coming up to the end of year nine so third year in the secondary portion of the school there." She glanced over at Robyn. "I'm not entirely sure what Aunt Lauren set up for you, but Sally and I both have exams coming up and choosing our courses for next year… if we're still going by then."

Robyn shifted, frowning slightly at the school. "I don't honestly know, I mean, I've been to school before, but…" she shrugged. "I don't know about the transfer and everything. I mean, do we even need school now? We're ships; we're in the navy whatever we do."

Sally sighed, sharing a look with her twin before answering, "Even though the two of us are warships, Megan isn't, plus we're fourteen, Robyn, one of the laws of the land is that everyone has to go through school from the age of four to the age of sixteen and take their GCSEs, which for everyone who isn't us or like us, would be what's looked at for jobs or further education."

Actually, now that Sally thought of it, she needed to check in with Rika and Kaylie, see how the Americans and Japanese were handling that aspect of things, particularly if any ships showed up younger than them. Maybe see if her aunt had any word from the other bases in Britain. "We need to go in, school starts at nine, and we need to talk to the headmaster about your classes and such."

"There's also the fact that, well, okay yeah we're Navy but do you honestly want to remain a grunt?" asked Megan. "Okay, yeah we'll probably get better pay and such just from term of service. I doubt the Abyssal War is going to end soon, but getting into officer training or picking up trade skills or the like will actually help if things do end and we're able to retire from the Navy, besides, who knows whether or not we'll actually need to do something outside the routine?" she added, ignoring the looks from various other students who were passing them by.

Sally snorted softly at the looks they were receiving. No doubt those students were wondering what near death experience the two of them had gotten into now and who the person hanging out with them was.

Robyn frowned, following the pair through a gate guarded by an armed guard. She blinked, watching the twins flash ID cards.

Still bemused, she followed them through, waiting until they were inside before catching the pair's attention. "What the hell? Why are the guards here armed?"

"Too many attacks by things that were intent on killing everyone here," Megan replied flatly. "It's not just us that seems to attract those things, but there's been enough that the school decided that they needed armed guards." Her eyes narrowed as she glanced back at the entryway. "They don't normally open carry though, so that is probably down to the abyssals."

"Wouldn't be the only thing," Sally added. "There're a few bunkers in different buildings nearby. Mostly they're supposed to be protected or something against supernatural creatures, but with the Abyssal War going on, they got reinforced to act as bomb shelters as well."

Robyn grimaced, recalling a few scares where the orphans she had been living with had to run for the public shelters due to the war. According to some old people it was like living World War 2 and the Blitz over again.

Shaking her head to clear it of such dismal thoughts, she followed the twins into the school proper.

Pushing a lock of green hair out of her face, Susan Wright mentally cursed whichever of her ancestors thought it was a good idea to get involved with a dryad. Of course, she got to suffer for it, mostly because her parents were fans of normal – not as bad as some, but still enough that she had run through gallons of hair dye to cover up her heritage.

Shaking her head, she half sighed, half groaned. Her hair probably wouldn't be as much of a problem, except for the fact she had recently found out she was a shipgirl, curtesy of the hospital when she had gone in for what felt like growing pains after she had reached near full height.

The doctors and nurses had, of course, taken x-rays when they couldn't find any obvious reason and gotten something that might have come from an X-men comic rather than the normal semi-transparent bones showing.

Of course getting Awoken in the 'pool' at Portsmouth had removed most of the cosmetics she had on, which had mostly been the dye. Then, before she could even get out so she could get more, Plymouth had been attacked.

"Miss Wright?" the voice had her looking up at the shipgirl that acted as the admiral's secretary. "The admiral will see you now."

"Thank you," Susan replied, getting to her feet. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, trying to steady her nerves before making her way through the door to the admiral's office.

"Take a seat, Miss Wright," the admiral said, not looking up from the paperwork on his desk.

Taking the offered seat, Susan took a moment to look around, frowning a little at the piles of paper on the desk either side of the workspace. Outside of that, the office was remarkably bare of personal touches, like it wasn't the admiral's office at all.

"Miss Susan Wright, the shipgirl HMS Minotaur, lead ship of the Minotaur-class light cruisers, correct?" the admiral asked.

Susan nodded. "That's correct… sir," she responded.

The admiral nodded slightly. "Miss Wright, you have given us something of a problem."

"Sir?" asked Susan. What the hell did he mean by that? How was she a problem?

"What I mean, Miss Wright, is that both Portsmouth and Scapa Flow have more than enough cruisers for their needs, as does Alexandra," the admiral explained. "Now, we could ship you out to India or Australia to join the Pacific Fleet, or we could send you over to Canada as a destroyer leader there, however with a ship as powerful as you are, that could likely be readily upgraded from a light cruiser to a heavy cruiser, it would likely be a waste to send you away at this moment in time.

"Luckily for you, Commodore Shipperley has, in the aftermath of the recent attack, opened Devonport to a shipgirl task force," the admiral continued. "You will be working as Commander Lauren Glenn's secretary ship for the foreseeable future as she will be heading the shipgirl flotilla."

"Sir?" asked Susan, already feeling well out of her depth with what was going on. On the one side, no being shipped off to who knew where, on the other, she still had to move to another city where she didn't know anyone or anything and deal with her parents, and how was she supposed to be a secretary to an officer and a shipgirl at the same time?

"You have a week to set your affairs in order before you ship out, Midshipman Wright, dismissed," the admiral stated.

Seeing that she wasn't about to get anything else from the old man, Susan held back the urge to sigh, getting to her feet and saluting, sloppily before leaving the room.

English, mathematics, science, humanities, PE, tactics, engineering, technology, marksmanship, martial arts, languages, ICT, business administration and finances, it all blurred together over the course of the next week for the three girls to the point where all three of them felt stuffed to bursting on knowledge rather than food.

Sally groaned as she flopped into the chair in front of her computer, planting a glass of ginger beer – from her sister's stash – with an audible thud as she leaned back into the soft cushions. Tomorrow was the day they got their first assigned ship from the British kanmusu fleet and what time hadn't been eaten up by school or training in enlisted level seamanship was taken by getting everything set up for that.

"Hey, Sally… wow… you look like shit," Kaylie's voice came from her computer speakers, causing the girl to open one eye and glare at the screen.

"Thanks…" Straightening up, she ran a hand through her hair. "You calling for anything particular, Kay, or is it a social call?" She asked, grunting when Robyn and Megan joined her, the former leaning against her side.

Kaylie fidgeted in the image. "More a warning, Hikaru's supposed to be doing a stream tonight, it's entirely possible she'll try to grab you during it, if only to introduce you to people." She cocked an eyebrow as she studied her friend. "What happened to you anyway?"

"School, seamanship, setting up a completely new department at HMS Drake, new sister, you know, usual shite," Megan answered. "The new secretary ship is supposed to show up tomorrow so hopefully we'll be able to get a bit more sleep."

Though she doubted it would be more than a few extra hours for the week, at least until the holiday or until things evened out, whichever one came first. Shifting her position, she leaned her head on one hand. "How do you, Hikaru and Rika deal with the mess of courses from normal school? I mean, we had a lot anyway, but it seems to have doubled since the weekend."

Sally snorted softly. "At least doubled, probably worse, especially since we're basically it for… well the whole shebang."

"I don't, not really," Kaylie admitted. "Yeah, we have teachers, but we don't really do all that in one go, heck, most of the seamanship stuff is for the fairies that form your crew, it doesn't really help you much, and our schools are on base so we can learn on the go if we need to head out on sortie."

Robyn blinked at the screen. "Fairies?" she asked.

Kaylie nodded, frowning slightly. "They're… not the easiest thing to explain," she allowed. "Put simply, they're supposed to be your crew and do everything your crew did, but when they're seen they're different. I've not really seen any American ones, but the Japanese ones look kind of like those stuffed dolls you see in period shows for kids except they're about the size of the smaller GI Joe toys, the six inch ones rather than the twelve inch." She shrugged helplessly.

Sally glared. "I would say you're lucky that you don't really get school any more, but I presume that's not counting sorties at stupid times of the day."

Kaylie snorted softly. "Just be glad you're not the person the media call 'the Derp Destroyer' nor that you have to deal with remembering 174 sister-ships' names, not even counting the Admirals and everyone else. You're at least able to start small."

Robyn snorted softly, waving her hand. "Uh, hey, new girl," she pointed out. "Okay there's only these two here, but apparently Warriors? From what Crow and Zephyr have said there's somewhere over three hundred of us because everyone from Amazon to Vampire counts even if we're split by name initial in a lot of cases."

"Hey, hey, it's Naka-chan, idol of the fleet, desu!" Hikaru's voice interrupted the group's conversation as she joined the call.

Glancing at the clock in her system tray, Sally grunted. "Huh, didn't think it was that early that you'd be around from Japan. It's what, midnight or something there?"

"Closer to one, desu, we just got back from sortie here at Yokosuka and since they're already here, I thought I'd introduce a couple of my friends." Hikaru smiled at the screen, leaning back to show off an orange dress. "First is USS William D. Porter, DD-579 of the Fletcher-class destroyers, desu." She waited as Kaylie waved at her web cam. "And HMS Zephyr, Z-class destroyer R19 of the Royal Navy stationed at the new naval base in Plymouth. I'm not sure about the other two off hand."

Megan shifted slightly, giving Hikaru a flat look. "Yeah, bull, Naka-chan." Straightening herself, she gave the camera a wave. "Hi, most of you know my sister and me, but for those that don't, Megan Jones, the Devonport Crow, as opposed to our great-great-grandfather, who is still the Raven. Our friend here is HMS Zenith, also one of the Warrior/Z-class destroyers of the Devonport Fleet in the RN, pennant number R95."

"Along with that HMNB Devonport has actually been around for about five hundred and twenty years, roughly, though the name's a lot more recent," Sally cut in. "We're actually the launching point for the fleet that repelled the Spaniards when they tried sending an armada our way and the local HQ is, I believe, named after Sir Francis Drake, the leader of that fleet."

Hikaru nodded along with the speech. "She's right, desu, at least according to Wikipedia; the main command centre at her naval base is HMS Drake, no relation to the various other HMS Drakes in the Royal Navy."

"Also home to one of the more infamous groups in the Royal Navy," Megan commented cheerfully. "Along with being the yard that built a certain Grand Old Lady and repaired the berserker boat that's still docked up London way," she added.

Sally snorted in amusement. "You'd probably be surprised at how many times some names repeat. Anyway, you wanted me to talk a bit, Naka?" she asked, getting a nod in return.

"Please," Hikaru said.

"Okay, well, I can't tell you everything, OpSec and all that," Sally responded, "but I'm HMS Zephyr, Warrior-class destroyer, part of the 15th Destroyer Flotilla, the 'Z-class' or 'Zulus' as we were known, built originally in '38, before the Second World War." She paused for a moment to grab a drink. "We were mostly built in pairs, me and Myngs at one yard, Zenith and Zebra at another, Zealous, Zest, Zodiac and Zambesi in two others."

She frowned for a moment before looking at the camera. "Oh, word of advice, don't trust Wikipedia, anyone can edit it and I'd not be surprised to find some government agents assigned to do just that to keep certain events out of public domain. Willie mentioned while we were talking alone that some of the events on there don't show up in her logs or memories."

"Just to cut in here," Hikaru said. "One of my viewers actually sent a message asking what your specifications are."

Megan frowned. "I hope, matey, that you're on about their ship capabilities not human measurements. For myself, I'm not a shipgirl; I'm a Rhyfelwr so I'm a bit different to the rest of the girls here. My job is basically to kill any supernatural that starts being too much trouble and to try to keep any other from getting to that point in the first place. For the shipgirls, Zenith, you want to take this one?"

Robyn blinked a couple of times as she sat up. "Uh… okay, I can do that." She frowned, trying to recall her gear. "Alright, Warrior-class destroyers run from the A-class led by Amazon, who was the test bed of a number of things before the war, up to Vampire who was the last of the Daring-class."

"By which she means the old Daring-class," Sally put in for the camera. "Many people call the modern Type-45 destroyers the D- or Daring-class due to Britain's habit of using names with a certain initial for destroyers."

Robyn nodded slightly to her sister ship. "We were pretty well all three hundred and ninety feet or a hundred and twenty metres long, forty-three feet or thirteen metres ten on the beam and had a draft of eighteen feet four inches or five metres fifty-eight centimetres nominally."

She chewed her lip, her brow pulling down. "I don't remember our top speed, I know the recorded top is somewhere around thirty to forty knots while we cruise at twenty. Like Amazon, the two of us were somewhat experimental, so some of our specs are not really talked about. I know for weapons we had five twin turrets with four-point-five inch forty-five calibre dual purpose naval rifles, ten sets of quad forty millimetre anti-aircraft machineguns—"

"Autocannons," both Jones twins corrected.

Robyn frowned, "What?" she asked as she gave the pair a curious look.

"While some are relatively rapid fire, they're too big of a calibre to be 'machineguns'. I think the BOFORs have the rate of fire for it, but they're twice the maximum size for round diameter," Sally explained.

Accepting the correction, Robyn nodded and continued, "Two five-shot, twenty-one inch torpedo launchers and two twenty-four shot, ten-inch hedgehog anti-submarine depth charge launchers that were actually sonar directed. We used those during the battle here in Plymouth a week back; they make good anti-infantry artillery as well."

Hikaru shifted slightly, frowning at her screen. "Another one of my commenters asked; have you been in any famous battles?"

Sally whistled. "Who… that's a fun one," she commented dryly. "Well, apart from the attempted invasion on Plymouth last week, there was the attempted attack on Royal Oak by U-47 back in World War Two; Zenith here caught 47 despite spending hours with her bow blown off." She patted Robyn on the shoulder.

Taking a breath, Sally frowned slightly, trying to remember the story her great-grandmother had told her as a child. "Everyone else's crews were trying to get Zenith's to beach her so we could fix her, but they refused. Hours later we found out why, they had managed to manoeuvre right where U-47 was going."

Megan snorted softly, "I think a few people thought Zenith's commander had lost his mind when he dropped the cranes, then they saw Zenith tilting like she's listing." She held one hand up straight, fingers skywards, before tilting it over to show the list of the destroyer.

Robyn grimaced at the tilt Megan was showing the camera. "Yeah, that wasn't the most fun thing I've done," she said. "Thing was, my crew had managed to snag U-47 with the cranes, and she wasn't exactly 'light'."

Sally snorted softly. "You're talking a destroyer trying to haul an 850 tonne submarine to the surface with cranes made to haul munitions, spares and provisions from the dock to their holds and magazines." She shook her head. "The cranes were probably rated at twenty to fifty tonnes at best."

Robyn nodded. "I could feel them straining, fortunately my crew tossed a couple of depth charges to make her surface." She shook her head, "Soaked pretty much everything, but getting one drop that close… as we moved fortunately for both of us, convinced U-47's captain to surface."

"We thought that was it, but even as Zealous and Zest steamed over, U-47 popped up caught by the cranes. Zenith's crew leap the decks just as our sisters ram in, the pair was literally within spitting distance when they locked against Zenith." Once again, she held her hands up, this time using her knuckles to show how the ships had ended up.

Smirking slightly, Robyn looked at the camera. "By the time everyone else was there, U-47's captain had surrendered. Battle stars and medals for all of us, but I ended up with extras for the capture and my crew's bravery," she said.

"Denmark Strait is probably another famous one." Megan commented. "Britain almost lost Hood in that fracas; we probably would have except the Admiral-class ships were delayed long enough by something that they got a new armour scheme brought out on Amazon back."

"Amazon being built in like 1920-23 or something," Sally added.

Megan frowned, leaning back in her seat. "Pretty much all the Z-class was there for that one again, along with Hood, Norfolk, Suffolk and Prince of Wales. I don't know the full details, but I do remember my great-gran saying that the shell in the Zephyr museum came within a few inches of taking her head off on its way through Zephyr's bridge and if it weren't for some sort of ballistic mesh in the armour scheme there would have been a lot more hurt or killed from shrapnel."

Sally nodded. "I got hit after Hood was crippled and it was after that when Bismarck and I got into it." She snorted softly, shaking her head. "I don't think there's anything that shows how rough that fight was."

Kaylie frowned, chewing her lip. "Wasn't there a film or book or something?" she asked. "I'm almost sure there were some documentaries about you girls that had bits which were recorded by on board cameras… good ones at that."

Megan frowned, biting the corner of her lip. "I don't remember one, but if there is, the museum should have it."

Sally shrugged her shoulders before returning to the story. "Sufficed to say, by the end my captain ordered my sole remaining gun used to clear paths for the German sailors to get off Bismarck's hull and I think she and a few others went aboard to get Bismarck's captain off. Damn good thing too given a couple of girls we know wouldn't have been born otherwise."

Taking a breath, she frowned slightly at her keyboard. "Besides those… there were a lot of convoy runs, one of which resulted in the capture of U-556 and an encounter with the KMS August von Heeringen."

Robyn snorted softly, shaking her head. "What she's not saying is that we captured U-556 by Zephyr willingly tanking a torpedo volley. I think 556's captain, once we got back to shore, was so enamoured of the bravery Zephyr's captain showed that he proposed to her on the quayside because he'd seen her take a badly damaged destroyer and fight off a battleship around a fifth heavier than Bismarck. That was before they took him off to be a POW for the rest of the war."

She shook her head bemused. "Pretty sure Hitler actively hated us at that point given how often we ran into German ships, particularly the Heeringen-class and their fleets."

Megan nodded. "Great-grandad's body was shipped back to Germany… about a year before my great-grandma died, – in 2004 and 2005 respectively – both of them spent their last hours in their quarters on their ships in the naval museum here in Plymouth." She frowned for a moment. "Actually, I think that's why we met Cara and Ronja. They're the great-granddaughters of one of great-granddad's friends so when we got involved in a pen pal program, they were added."

"Weirdest dang thing I'd had, including the annoyances we kept attracting was gran dying," Sally murmured. "Anyway, after that, well, we were fighting Heeringen and her sisters with four of the Lion-class, two of the Unicorn-class, about half of the Minotaur-class – one of whom is back and supposed to be coming here tomorrow – and a mix of W- and Z-class destroyers mostly."

"Most of the rest were in the Pacific War, going against Suruga, Kushiro, Tosa, Kaga, Shinano and Ishikari's fleet, which this pair bounced off a few times though it was mostly Conqueror and Thunderer along with Pegasus and Enbarr leading the Pacific fleet," Megan said, rubbing her jaw thoughtfully. "They were involved in the Dunkirk pull out and D-Day though, along with some of our friends being there for other battles, heck I think they visited Japan a few times one being for the treaty signing after the War."

Robyn nodded slightly. "We've got about half a century of action. Actually, if I remember right, America mothballed the Iowa-class while they weren't needed; the Lions were still on full patrol. All of us were, even if we got rented out to other countries for a time, we still were Devonport Fleet and got a few fights, including the Falklands, Gulf, Korea, Cyprus, the Icelandic Fishing wars."

"Cod Wars," Megan corrected. "But yeah, the Irish Troubles as well. Heh, thinking about it, I think the Irish wanted one of the big ships, but Britain wasn't handing out the Lions and the four Vanguards were split between Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada to take the place of the older Admiral-class." She gave an amused snort and shook her head. "Those girls were run for a fair while even then. I think Hood lasted until the seventies or so, though the others were retired in the fifties." She shrugged.

"I think I remember gran mentioning that they wanted to reactivate the girls in our museum for Desert Fox in the late nineties, since it wasn't long after they'd retired them, but everyone wanted the Unicorns in and we still don't have a good source of fuel for them since they run on fusion reactors rather than nuclear like Nuke-E and it'd mean ripping out the reactors and replacing them."

"Wait," Kaylie cut in. "How long were you in service?"

"We were launched in 1938, commissioned officially a few months later after our shake downs, which all the Zulus ran together, including a mock battle against the Wilders, that put us 'in service' in 1939," Sally replied, frowning slightly. "We retired as museums in around 1995 and were scattered across pretty much the entire Commonwealth along with Japan and Norway."

Megan frowned slightly, chewing her lip in thought. "I think four of the Warriors are here in Britain those being Zephyr, Zenith… I think Wizard is over in Dublin and Wager is hanging out with Belfast in London."

Sally nodded. "Beyond them… well, Whelp is in Norway, along with her basilisks, who I think have kids now. I know Kempenfelt is in Canada, she picked up a pair of amaroks while over there one time, now they use her as a den, and keep her hull tidier than the human visitors," she explained.

"Australia has Vampire, I think Myngs, Whirlwind or both are in Japan along with Swiftsure, Conqueror and Thunderer, maybe Pegasus or Enbarr as well," Megan added, frowning.

Hikaru blinked, "Old ships, desu."

Sally nodded soberly. "We ran most every naval war the UK was involved in for half a century and we're probably some of the longest serving ships, though obviously the old steamers and sailors beat us out. Victory and Unicorn… the one from 1834 not the name ship of the carrier class is much older, though Unicorn didn't do much."

Hikaru nodded, frowning slightly as the talk turned to other matters.