Chapter 4: Debrief Issues

Standing in front of the prefab covered dock building, Lauren watched Angela lead Dauphin off to have a look at her and see what damage had been done in the extended chase. Robyn had already headed off in the gathering evening gloom to get some sleep so now it was just her and her niece.

Clasping her hands together behind her back, she turned to look at Sally, the girl's hair tussled by the wind of her speed and a slight glow on her cheeks from the battering of the salty sea and wind still visible in the light. "Well, that was your first mission as a kanmusu, how do you think it went?" she asked.

Sally sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Honestly, Commander? We need a hell of a lot more practice before we're ready for major deployments."

"How do you figure, Sally?" Lauren asked, making a gesture for her niece to follow her and heading back towards the building HMS Drake.

"Well…" Sally frowned slightly at the path they were travelling down. "While we completed our objective and found out our travel and military speed caps, and rescued Dauphin, who might get us an in with a French admiral for some things for a little while, we did a lot wrong." She lapsed into silence, listening to the crunch of gravel under their feet while she put her thoughts into some sort of order.

Lauren arched an eyebrow at her niece, waiting for her to continue.

"For example…" Sally said, "Well, those abyssals should never have gotten that close. We were nearly to the Isles of Scilly when Dauphin called for help and once we knew they were there, I tagged them quick enough, but we should have seen them moving around or maybe we did and didn't twig.

"Between radar, lidar, sonar and esa, Zenith and I should have eyes on everything bigger than a small dog within our range," Sally continued, frowning at the path in front of them, "which from what I could figure coming back is about two hundred miles."

She sighed and shook her head. "Those abyssals and Dauphin weren't picked up by us until they were within about fifty to seventy miles, probably towards the lower end, and only after Dauphin called us."

"Even then, it's better than most," Lauren commented.

Sally frowned for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't know, I mean, I know most of the World War ships were lucky to beat a hundred miles on their air search, but we need to learn to use them a lot more. We should try to get to the point where we know where everything is, even if that's only in the back of our minds and tag abyssals well before they're in gun range."

Pacing alongside her niece, Lauren nodded, frowning to herself. Back on the Dragon, while abyssals were spooky enough to evade most types of detection, they had certainly had the range on their electronic warfare and sensors to find most potential threats within a fairly large circle.

"Agreed," she said, "and we need to ensure that the base's systems are operating at the same sort of level. Abyssals can sneak up on most of the world's ships and bases, but they shouldn't be as able to sneak up on you girls." She paused for a moment to shake her head. "We also need ways to ensure we can see what is going on while you're out on patrol."

Nodding, Sally scowled, coming to an uncomfortable stop near the entrance to HMS Drake. "There's something else as well. While we managed to catch the abyssals almost completely by surprise in this fight and sink them pretty quickly, that's because we had half an hour or better to find firing solutions and observe where they were and how they moved to send our torpedoes and rounds out in a near perfect strike."

She huffed, following her aunt into the building. "Between our sensors, the links between our weapons and them and the targeting and fire control systems we have, it shouldn't have taken us that long to set up."

"Even if you know which systems are which, this is the first time you've done long range shooting with them," Lauren pointed out.

Sally nodded. "As it is, even if I was within effective range, which is something like ten klicks or so, I'd probably miss more than I hit on snap shots, especially the closer I got to maximum fire rate, which I think is about twenty rounds per minute per gun. I can do much better with a small arm, even if I'm nowhere near the class most of the marines on base are."

Lauren stayed quiet as she led her niece to her office, unlocking the door and letting Sally take a seat at her desk. "I think you're probably right," she said finally, having given her niece a can of soda and poured herself a cup of tea. "I knew we were going to be far behind with everything, after all we're just starting out and we have no veterans. The question is how we change that?" she asked.

Cracking the can open, Sally sipped it for a moment, frowning. "We need training," she said bluntly. "I mean, Megan can probably train here for the most part, Lyrene can teach her a good amount and there are other Rhyfelwr around, presuming things aren't too hot for them to leave their territories right now. Most of hers is probably similar to what we're already doing or at least things that can be done without threatening major collateral damage."

Lauren nodded, frowning slightly at the computer as she made some notes.

"For the rest of us though… while we're figuring some things out, we're far below where we should be," Sally continued thoughtfully. "I'd honestly like to have another Warrior-class shipgirl give me and Robyn at least a few weeks to work up. Susan could probably do with it as well, and training in how to handle all the things she's expected to do as a secretary to you. I don't know about Angela, but if there's a repair ship and someone good with logistics? She should get some time with them so she knows how to do things."

"We need a lot more than that," Lauren admitted. "We still need to give you, Robyn and Susan endurance runs and Susan needs a speed run. I have no idea how good her sensors or fire control are, or how much armour any of you have." She took a sip of her tea and frowned.

"There's more, isn't there?" asked Sally, noting the frown on her aunt's face.

Lauren nodded. "There's also still the issue of getting stores, even the four of you eat enough for two adults each on a normal day, not counting me or Megan," she said. "If you're in need of healing or you've exhausted your supplies that's going to at least double and that's before we get anyone else here. We need stores of munitions for your weapons, steel, fuel and other things, like those baths that apparently work as wet docks or dry docks for you girls."

Sally frowned, sipping her drink and staring at the floor between her feet. "Maybe we can get some ideas as to what is needed… I don't know if it's possible without direct contact with an admiral, but I could try talking to some friends of mine." She looked up at her aunt. "You remember Megan and I have pen pals in different countries?" she asked. "Well… mine or most of mine at least, are shipgirls as well. I don't know if Hikaru, Rika or Kaylie would have access, but they might know something about what their bases have as a set up for shipgirls and how much we need."

Lauren nodded slowly after a minute. "It might get things a bit quicker than trying to get information out of Admiral Collingwood and Admiral Graham. Even with Commodore Shipperley pushing as much as he can around everything else he has to do, they're not moving things particularly quickly."

"So why are we doing this manually?" Dauphin asked, one eyebrow arching over her hazel eyes as she looked down at the six inch tall person spot welding one of her legs, something that seemed to tickle given the way her leg jumped every so often while it was being worked on. "Shouldn't there be a bath for me to soak in?"

Angela shook her head. "If we had one, you'd be the only one needing it right now. Unfortunately trying to get one through standard channels just doesn't seem to be getting anywhere, even with a commodore signing off on it, much less whatever is in the baths."

"Eeehh…" Dauphin gaped at her. "B-but its standard equipment, every kanmusu base has at least enough baths for half their shipgirl force to be out of action, more if they can help it, not to mention a good stock of repair fluid."

"Dauphin, how much do you know about Devonport as a kanmusu base?" asked Angela.

Dauphin frowned, poking the corner of her lips with a finger. "I didn't know Devonport was a kanmusu base," she admitted after a minute.

Angela nodded. "Exactly, we've been up… maybe two weeks, three at a stretch. You've met just about everyone involved with the kanmusu already."

Dauphin blinked several times. "What? Je ne comprends pas," she said.

Sighing, Angela frowned as she tried to recall her secondary school French classes to understand Dauphin. "In simple terms, we're new, so new that basically nobody knows about us. Portsmouth, Scapa Flow, even outlying bases like Alexandra, sure, but Devonport only just started after the honey trap."

She looked down, feeling her fairies returning to her before frowning slightly. "There are, at present, four kanmusu, one Rhyfelwr, one human and one being I've no idea on beyond powerful, that are effectively part of the kanmusu here and being the newest group getting hold of basically anything is damn near impossible right now."

"B-but the-the girls took oot le abyssals een minutes if zat, 'ow nu are zéy?" Dauphin choked, losing control of her accent in her shock.

"And had in excess of half an hour to plan exactly what they were doing and lock in where to fire and when," Angela pointed out. "I'm not putting them down; they did better than I would in that situation. Hell, they pretty much broke the abyssals attack on this base by themselves, or at least just the two of them and the local Rhyfelwr. They were still lucky and we're still trying to work up."

Shaking her head, Dauphin swallowed to get herself back under control. "I'm sorry; it's… been a long patrol. I think my memory is fritzing out. Uh… you said you didn't have any repair fluid, right?" she asked. Getting a nod from Angela, she frowned. "I might be able to get some. There are some people that might trade for it." She trailed off as her stomach gave a loud rumble almost shaking her bones followed by an unhappy gurgle. "Eh… heh, heh… maybe after I refuel?"

Angela nodded. Casting her mind out, she scanned the buildings of Devonport for a moment. "We can get some things at the mess, though Commander Glenn will probably want to know what you had so she knows how much it's likely to take to resupply you or others of your class later." Getting up, she stretched, grunting a little before offering Dauphin a hand up that the submarine girl accepted gratefully. "Everything working right?" she asked.

"Seems to be, I think it was mostly concussion damage, distant concussion damage that is," Dauphin replied, testing her legs and arms briefly. "Along with some from the speed I was brought here under. I'm built for running deep, not fast." Making her way over to the side, she pulled the spare uniform over her swimsuit and slipped on a pair of pumps that Angela had dug out of somewhere. "All ready to go," she said, bouncing a little in place.

Nodding again, Angela led the way out of the room and to the still active mess hall. It took them several minutes to get there and when they did, Dauphin gathered together what was probably at least five to ten thousand calories worth of various foods, mostly sandwiches since it was past the usual hours.

"So since you're the first shipgirl to come here from outside apart from Minotaur, who didn't really see much of anything since she spent most of the time prior sorting things out so she could come here, what should we be looking at getting?" Angela asked, pulling out a notepad and pencil.

Bolting down several sandwiches, Dauphin frowned as she thought. "Well… bear in mind; I'm a submarine so I'm not the best placed person to ask, but the obvious is that you're going to need dorms for every group… at least five to cover destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers and submarines. You're also going to need somewhere with baths for us to dock, preferably near where we would come ashore so we can get there fast if we're injured."

She paused, picking up another sandwich and tearing a chunk of it off to chew thoughtfully. "You might want some sort of pool in the sub dorm, some of us like swimming around when we're not on duty; some of us actually feel safer sleeping in water. Obviously there's the stock of food and resources. Having a place near the water to store equipment would be useful as well. It's… actually easier to just strap things on than summon them every time we go out."

Angela nodded, jotting down what Dauphin was saying. "Anything else for the dorms or are they just fairly standard?"

Dauphin frowned for a moment before shrugging. "I can only really speak for the sub dorms at Brest and what I've heard. We all like setting up a few things of our own to call a place home, you know?" she asked, getting a nod in response. "Well in Brest the sub dorm has shared rooms, two girls in each, so we've got room to spread out a bit; while I've heard the German girls have their own island or something."

Noting that down, Angela frowned at the pad. Were there other things she could ask Dauphin? Thinking for a moment, she set the pad on the table. "You said you work at Brest? Do you think you could describe what goes on there on a typical day?"

"A typical day, huh?" asked Dauphin. "Well, it's not like I've got much else to do at the moment so sure." Taking a few minutes to eat and drink, she closed her eyes, thinking back over what she knew before starting to tell Angela the things she had seen.

"Hey girls, got a few?" Sally asked almost as soon as the Skype call had connected her to her friends, the three pictures beside hers showing Kaylie in one, Rika and Hikaru sharing another and a pair of twins, one wearing her hair in a bob that was almost white, the other in a similar style except for a longer lock in front of each ear, her hair being brown.

"What's up, Sally?" one of the last pair asked, frowning at the screen in front of them.

Sally shifted slightly. "Okay, first up, Cara, Ronja, I'm sorry for asking but are you two shipgirls?"

The pair shared a look before shaking their heads. "Uh… not that we know of, our sister is though. She's Bismarck," the brunette of the pair answered.

Sally sighed, face palming. "Of course she is," she muttered. "Considering my great-grandfather was friends with Bismarck's captain – who is your great-grandfather – that makes far too much sense." Seeing the pair looking confused, she sighed again. "I take it that you've not been keeping up with the news that much. Hi, I'm Zephyr," she told them.

"Oh… boy…" the girls said.

Nodding, Sally took a moment to grab a can of soda from nearby before dropping back into her seat and cracking it open. "Exactly," she said. "Thing is, well, I can fight well enough as a person, at least for a person my age, but as a ship? It's a bit different."

The three other shipgirls shared a look before both Japanese girls shrugged. "Well…" Kaylie started. "I guess, since you're a British ship, you've got radar and sonar, right?"

Sally nodded again. "And a couple of other variants," she admitted.

"Right," Kaylie frowned. "I'd say expect the German and Italian shipgirls to hate your guts for at least a while. From what one of my history teachers said, the Nazis hated fighting British, Canadian, Australian or New Zealander ships, at least the interwar and World War 2 designs."

"There's some Japanese shipgirls that won't like you either," Hikaru added. "While Britain and Japan were better than America and Japan during the War, your Pacific Fleet basically locked a good chunk of ours up hard."

Kaylie chewed her lip for a moment. "There's also the fact that even your frigates would fight battleships. I mean, yeah, the Taffies, me and my division mates or Laffey were one thing but… you, Whelp, Defence, Acasta and Ardent, Belfast, your Enterprise… there's a list of incidents longer than my hull where Brit boats took on fights well over their displacement."

"That's without the sub hunts where you lot caught them well beyond anyone else's range, torpedoes that could shoot subs and out ranged our Type-93s, rapid fire depth charge projectors and the stealth tech," Rika added. "I think there was mention of some night battles where British ships seemed to see the enemy force without their lights as well."

"Grandad mentioned that during Denmark Strait, Zephyr… you… seemed to be a lot faster than any German destroyer he knew and often did things like skid on the water to launch a broadside before running forward or back to avoid shells," the brunette twin put in. "He never knew how you pulled it off, or why there were a couple of times you sent depth charges onto Bismarck's deck, though that was pretty effective. You crippled one of her fore turrets with it when they landed in just the right place to shock the gears and crack the armour on the deck."

The blonde nodded. "As Ronja said, your gran pulled some stuff I don't think a motorboat could do, so probably a big thing would be practice, particularly unconventional."

Hikaru chewed her lip, frowning at the keyboard in front of her, or where it probably was considering it wasn't being picked up by her webcam. "You're probably going to want a firing range, one that's at least long enough to hit your maximum effective range on, preferably your straight max." Her frown deepened. "You know what your batteries are, right?" She got a nod from Sally. "Then you need a range to match them."

Sally frowned, digging out a notepad and pen. "So we need at least one twenty kilometre range for me and Robyn, and whoever else joins us and another that's…" trailing off, she moved forwards, pulling up the NavWeaps web site. "If this is anywhere near accurate, we probably want something about twenty-five kilometres for Minotaur's main battery. Torps… are probably about fifty-four klicks as well, so… say two thirty-to-sixty kilometre ranges for those of us here."

"You're also going to want to learn how to manoeuvre at speed and deal with both anti-air and anti-submarine warfare," Rika commented. "I don't remember off hand how good your main guns are for the former, but you said you've got something like ten quad-40s, those were fairly good, at least the BOFORs version."

Sally nodded, jotting down a few notes. "I'm not sure about doing AA training here since we've got no carriers on hand, and somehow I doubt we'll be getting any soon, but yeah, BOFORs 40mm/L60 is what I think I've got for primary AA, though my four-point-fives can punch out planes twelve klicks almost straight up."

Kaylie frowned, nodding slightly. "Sounds like they're either close under or not much over the five inchers my sister-ships and I have, though managing to rack forty BOFORs…" she whistled softly. "I'd hate to try getting a plane through that. I mean, what's your rate of fire?"

"I can only get about two hundred to two-fifty rounds a minute with the full four-point-five battery though," Sally replied, frowning slightly. "Though I've not tried it so far, the BOFORs are supposed to be around seven klicks for the ceiling discounting the fact most rounds would be self-destructing and I can fire around ninety rounds per gun in a minute, meaning a total of three thousand six hundred per minute."

Kaylie frowned, running her fingers through her hair. "You're probably going to need some submarines to practice ASW against as well, I mean you've got those two hedgehog launchers, they can do a number on a submarine, but you need to learn how to handle them."

"Aunt Lauren is trying to shake things free, but it's probably about as easy as building the Great Wall alone," Sally muttered.

Shifting, Kaylie narrowed her eyes. "I think… you're a British destroyer, so you've got radar directed fire control, so probably the big thing is going to be learning that. Twenty kilometres is technically getting into over the horizon territory even if they're barely pop guns, at least compared with the weapons on heavy cruisers, battle cruisers and battleships." She shook her head briefly. "Anyway, you need to get used to your radar and sonar and used to tagging things through them to run your guns."

"Considering it took half an hour to lock things when Robyn and I rescued Dauphin yesterday, definitely," Sally said. "It isn't just radar and sonar though. Part of why I'm so heavy compared to most, is because I've got lidar and esa as well."

"Lidar and esa?" asked Ronja while the others sat blinking. "What are those?"

Sally took a breath. "They're variants," she said. "LIDAR or LADAR as some call it is Light Detection and Ranging, essentially radar but with lasers instead of radio waves, potentially making it worse in bad weather, though I think my version can work under water, because it uses blue/green lasers."

Frowning, Sally took a moment to recall the terminology she had learned years previously. "ESA is an electronically scanned array, it's another radar offshoot that's harder to detect and jam. My passives also give me some low or no light capability."

She shifted, biting the corner of her lip for a moment. "Actually, I think all of Britain's ships since the War have had ESA in some form and some of the planes like the F-16, F-22 and F-35 do as well, though the planes might be worse than mine."

Cara whistled softly. "No wonder Britain was pretty much a naval powerhouse up until they retired the Devonport battle fleet."

"Was?" asked Hikaru. "Last I looked Britain had something like four-five hundred active ships discounting the rest of the Commonwealth compared to the US having some six to seven hundred."

Rika shook her head. "You do know it took two full fleets to sink one destroyer for the abyssals, right?" she asked.

"What destroyer?" Ronja asked.

Sally sighed, "The Dragon, my aunt's ship. Fortunately everyone got off and the abyssals lost hard." She nodded when the twins grimaced. "Hence why Aunt Lauren is our full time CO now," she said.

"Hell," Rika added, "Britain's still pretty decently off compared to some nations. China and Russia got smashed in pretty short order, yeah they held against the attempted invasions, but their navies are pretty well wiped out. America's still in the fight more due to how many hulls they have rather than the capability of those hulls, Japan's only got a few destroyers left and I'd hate to see what state Italy, France, Germany or the other EU nations are in."

"We'll probably lose more ships now my aunt isn't in the fight, that or the Sea Lords will pull our ships back to harbour and hold them there," Sally said. "Fortunately we've already got a number of shipgirls to take over, not that they seem to be helping add to the bases."

"Speaking of shipgirls there's a list of… incidents that went over the top," Hikaru said. "Cara, Ronja, your sister might know about this, but I don't think anyone would want anyone outside the navy to learn about it." A moment later a text message appeared on their screens with a link to the list in question.

Opening the link, Sally frowned as she read through some of the entries on it before one caught her eye. "Wait, sugar free gummy bears act as laxatives for us?"

"Which rule is that?" Kaylie asked.

"Uh… Rule 11," Sally replied. "Trying to use Haribo sugar free gummy bears as a prank on shipgirls without severe enough issues of a certain type will result in severe punishment." She looked at the Japanese girls. "Want to share what that's about?" she asked.

Both Hikaru and Rika shuddered. "Only the Haribo ones that we know of," Rika said, grimacing. "That said, nobody wants to experiment, Mutsuki picked up a few and shared them with me and Yuudachi, we ended up stuck on the loo long enough to crap out what felt like three days' worth of 'back up'."

"Ugh… really, Rika?" asked Ronja, "Did you have to put it like that?"

Rika gave her a flat look. "Be glad you haven't been there, Inazuma ended needing to have her a good chunk of her wardrobe replaced entirely and apparently the carrier dorms needed their toilet block replaced because there were more carriers in need than stalls."

"That wasn't even the worst," Hikaru added, looking a little queasy. "Someone decided to mix them into coffee. Our sub dorms were… well, shit city. It took months before Yuu and Imuya to face the building again, let alone coffee or anything similar."

"Oh, I remember that one," Kaylie said, blinking as she continued looking through the list herself. "Rule 40, Iowa got herself drunker than a skunk with Musashi and Bismarck one time." She clarified as she shivered briefly. "I don't remember all of it, but Iowa went streaking… which was something I never wanted to see, brrr."

"What happened?" Rika asked curiously.

Kaylie shivered again, hugging herself. "Iowa ran up and hugged me, then ran off somewhere. I think the abyssals just kinda decided they weren't touching that one, because nobody's seen them in the area they found Iowa in since."

"So that's why Luzie had a major hangover that day, we were wondering about that," Cara commented. "Hey, what's… this about World of Warships and training?" she asked, posting another rule she had found into the chat. "It's rule 25, by the way."

"Arashio," Hikaru stated. Seeing the others look confused, she sighed. "Somehow, I'm not sure how, but somehow, she found the game online and then spent the next week solid playing it until Asashio had to get Suzuya to drag her out for proper training. I heard Yuudachi went the same way while she was with DesDiv Two."

Rika shrugged. "It was before I met her, so I don't know, but I did hear a few rumours of people getting into the game and stealing from their dorm mates for premium ships." She frowned pensively. "That might be why Yuudachi was moved though."

Hikaru frowned, scrolling through the list on her screen before shuddering. "Oh hell, I remember that one."

Sally cocked an eyebrow. "Which one is this?"

"Rule 78," Hikaru responded tiredly. "Nicolosa de Recco was one of the first we heard about. She told one of Italy's destroyer divisions about the Battle of Narvik as if Warspite was a Japanese ghost… come to think of it, I think there were others, like the Battle of Gibraltar Strait and the Mediterranean Banshees."

"Grandad sometimes called Sally's hull a 'Windsbraut'," Ronja commented. "But then, she's named for a wind god, so calling her a wind spirit or wind demon makes sense, particularly when they're associated with storms."

Sally snorted softly, shaking her head. "Probably closer to sídhe considering my mother," she said. "That or Aos Sí." She shrugged then frowned. "I doubt Warspite took the tale turning her into a fear gorta well if she's about."

Kaylie shrugged. "No idea on Warspite, Enterprise though… our Enterprise was called the Grey Ghost because of how many times Japan claimed she was sunk when she wasn't, apparently someone made her into a demon spirit or something that had her steaming for Japan after it got around."

Rika nodded absently, scrolling through a few more before groaning. "Oh kami, I remember that one. Rule 208, which basically said stop letting Shimakaze get hold of candy."

"Let me guess," Kaylie drawled, "she got hold of candy."

"About four or five Halloween stashes worth," Rika confirmed. "Shimakaze talking while hopped up on sugar sounds like some Disney… Warner Brothers… um… well, Donald Duck. Or Blurr, you know that guy from Transformers?"

She shifted as Sally and Ronja nodded followed by Kaylie. "As for doing anything else, she was moving almost like the Flash, and she managed to give several light cruisers black eyes before they got her to sortie into the Sea of Japan for some reason."

Hikaru frowned. "I think I remember that, Jintsuu and Tenryuu were among those hurt and they had to get Tashkent involved to catch her."

Sally frowned, rubbing her jaw. "Shimakaze is how fast normally?"

"Three thousand three hundred tonnes full load, 75,000 horsepower and 40.9 knots," Hikaru answered. "Why do you ask?"

"She's probably about the third fastest that I know of," Sally replied, drawing looks from the rest. "We tested the other day, which led to this conversation because of rescuing Dauphin."

She frowned slightly. "Robyn and I – presumably the rest of our class as well – are around 5,000 tonnes full load, with 110,000 horsepower hydro jets, which means our cruising speed is around 20kn, full military power will let us run at about 45.1kn."

"That's pretty fast," Rika commented.

Sally nodded. "In theory I might be able to get up to about 46.2kn in emergencies. I've got the turbine power to run my drives faster than their rated max, but that'll likely cause cavitation issues and could blow out my drives or flip me."

All five other girls winced, no doubt remembering pictures of motorboats that had flipped at speed.

Shifting slightly, Sally frowned at the desk in front of her before having a swallow from her can. "Tashkent has about the same power in her drives and less weight being about 4,160 tonnes full load. Then again, she has conventional screws so she caps about 42-44 knots. My pump jets are supposed to be as powerful as ducted screws but weigh less."

"Shit…" Kaylie whispered while the others stared. "You could out run some motorboats with speed like that."

Sally nodded, frowning slightly. "The slower ones probably, but as I said, cavitation causes issues once you start hitting higher speeds in water. My engines up-scaled might reach fifty knots, but it's liable to tear them apart." She shifted. "Hell, I think either Zealous or Wager blew out their impellers in the fifties because they were pushing too hard, and took 'em months to replace them."

"That had to suck," Rika commented.

Nodding again, Sally frowned. "I don't think too many were hurt but…" she shrugged. "Actually, I checked earlier and that's where I got the 'emergency speed' from, because if it's either die horribly or be laid up for an age, I'll take being laid up."

"Better a broken leg than dead," Cara commented.

Frowning, Sally nodded while she thought back over what she could remember of her specs. "I think… there were rumours about potentially using magneto-hydrodynamic drives on us instead of standard pump jets, but couldn't get something to work properly or something." She shrugged. "Or at least that's the theory, practically, who knows."

Hikaru nodded, still scrolling through the list absently before pausing as she spotted something. "Oh, hey, looks like the honey trap made the list, as part of another rule." A few clicks and she had the rule in question shared:

419. Kidd is no longer allowed access to any pirate related materials for the foreseeable future. Until she explains how she acquired four fully intact and crewed Spanish treasure galleons.
419a. No, HMS Drake, that was not a challenge from the tea-dumping, tax-evading, over-sexed, over-paid, & over-here damn Yankee.
419b. I meant all twenty of you Drakes.
419c. Now explain how you captured an entire convoy of Wa-class Abyssal transport ships.
419d. "With style and panache!" does not answer anything.
419e. And pray tell, what counts as a 'honey trap' for ship-girls? Much less Abyssal ship-girls?
419f. Let me get this straight. You used HMNB Devonport as a honey trap for the Abyssal convoy on the basis of the old sayings "Men are ships and women are ports" and "Any port in a storm".
419g. And Devonport, you're an Installation Type; you're our bloody base how did you sneak out without us noticing?
419h. Ah, I see. By silly walking. Of course. SILLY WALKING. Because that answers EVERYTHING.
419i. Force D ("Drake") is forbidden from deploying for the foreseeable future due to the damage they cause to Admiral Cunningham's mental health. - HMS King George V
419j. As well as to the well-being of the Spanish ship-girls.
419k. "To be honest, our ship-girls freaked out so badly that they actually ended their civil war and teamed up against the reported return of El Draque. So something good came out of it. But please keep the spawn of Francis the Dragon away from our territorial waters." - Admiral Rojas, Armada Española
419l. All ships with names derived from pirates, privateers, buccaneers, and the like, please proceed to the Admiral's office immediately.

"To be honest, our ship-girls freaked out so badly that they actually ended their civil war and teamed up against the reported return of El Draque. So something good came out of it. But please keep the spawn of Francis the Dragon away from our territorial waters." - Admiral Rojas, Armada Española

All ships with names derived from pirates, privateers, buccaneers, and the like, please proceed to the Admiral's office immediately.

Reading through the rule, Sally scowled. While she knew about Angela's official story of how she ended up where she did, the rest…. "The Drakes had better spend some of what they got for those Wa-class transports on repairs and funeral expenses for Plymouth, because I might well join my sister in giving them an enema each with a sharp object… or a torpedo, and I doubt they'll escape me easily."

"Settle down Sally," Kaylie said then face palmed. "Yes, bad phrasing considering, but seriously. I doubt anyone will be inclined to help Devonport if you go around stabbing the girls that caused the honey trap no matter how bad it was, though it might explain why you're not getting much help, since I doubt you'd be asking us this if you had help."

Sally snorted, shaking her head. "Bum fuck nothing for help," she deadpanned. "We barely know what resources we're likely to need and most of what we do know is from Dauphin or from what little Commodore Shipperley has managed to shake free. I know my aunt lost her ship, but hell, she should get something for the service time she's had and for being the one front lining the fight while most of the other shipgirls were working up."

The three shipgirls shared a look. "Alright," Hikaru said finally. "Give us a couple of days and we'll email you everything we can, alright?"

Sally nodded. "That'll work," she said. "Robyn, Megan and I still have normal school at the moment so we can get away with waiting a bit."