Chapter 10: Aftermath

Rika stretched with a groan as she entered the dorm room she shared with Yuudachi and Mutsuki – or rather Arei Orito and Mino Misaki – from the bathroom. The other pair was still getting cleaned up from the long day of streaming, giving Rika a moment to think about things.

The stream had gone on far longer than anyone had been expecting, even with her own game being relatively short and Hikaru's being the same apart from the amount of times she had restarted because of deaths that was still around two hours per segment, plus another two of mostly talking to the watchers.

The yawn that crawled up her throat felt like it cracked her jaw when she let it out. Groaning again, she flopped onto her bed, looking up at the one above.

What did she do now? Yes her dorm mates were teens, but she didn't think they were that into horror, not like the Jones twins anyway. Would it be best to just let things lie and see what happened or would it be better to at least offer to let them 'cuddle pile' with her?

Feeling her bed dip, she looked over to see Arei sitting to her left, towelling her long hair dry. "You okay, Arei-chan?" asked Rika, pushing herself back upright.

Arei nodded, flipping her hair around so she could towel off the other side. "I'm okay, just…" she trailed off, looking over at Rika. "Rika-chan, we're friends, right?" she asked, getting a nod. "Then how come we've never seen your other friends or knew about the games you have?"

"Arei-chan… I've only been here for a few months," Rika responded. "Between trying to get my sea legs, settling in here, fighting and everything else, I've not really had much time to play much and it's not really like I know what sort of games you or Mino-chan are into or who your friends outside of the base – or even inside it – are," she pointed out. "Heck, all I know about your gaming preferences is that something resulted in you being moved here instead of being with DesDiv Two and it was around the time the rule about using World of Warships as a training aid came up."

That comment drew an annoyed huff and a blush from Arei. "Okay, so maybe I got a little obsessed with a game. It's not like I was the only one," she retorted.

Rika rolled her eyes at her friend, moving to slip an arm around Arei. "I know, Arei-chan," she said. "But it's the only time I've seen or heard anything about what you play, read, listen to or watch and I don't have that much on Mino-chan, so it's hardly a one-way street," she pointed out. "I mean, did you know Mino-chan has arachnophobia before the stream?"

Arei shook her head. "I didn't even know she had a sister… a blood sister, not a sister-ship that is."

"Kisaragi-chan is both my sister-ship and my half-sister, Yukiyo," Mino commented from the door. Yawning widely, she made her way over to the pair on Rika's bed and flopped on the other side to Arei. "Ugh… I didn't do anything today, why am I so tired?" she asked before looking at Rika. "Rika-chan… who were those girls you and Naka-san were talking to?" she asked. "I mean, I know their ship names, but I don't remember anything about them."

Rika shifted slightly between the pair. "It's been a long day even if we weren't actively doing much," she replied. "And as to the British girls, I've only known Zenith-san for a few weeks since Zephyr-chan introduced us, the others I've known for years." She frowned then shrugged.

"Are they shipgirls?" Arei asked.

Nodding, Rika frowned slightly. "Remember the news reports from Plymouth a few weeks or so back? The ones that resulted in Rule 419 on the List?" she asked, getting nods from both girls. "Zephyr-chan and Zenith-san both woke to being shipgirls then, destroyers, Crow-chan isn't a shipgirl, she's a Rhyfelwr – they're like our Karas – but she is Zephyr-chan's sister so she's at least as capable even if it's not in the same areas."

Yawning again, Mino dropped her head onto Rika's shoulder and closed her eyes. "Tired," she mumbled.

"We've been doing things for ten hours, with few enough breaks," commented Rika. "You two going to be okay sleeping tonight or should we drag out the large futon?" she asked.

Arei frowned while Mino blinked sleepily. "Might be better to have it out… some of what we saw was scarier than fighting Abyssals."

Rika nodded, shifting Mino off her shoulder so she and Arei could drag out the larger futon and get it set up. It only took them a few minutes to get everything ready and Mino into the bed with Rika cuddling her and Arei opposite her.

All three were asleep when Yukiyo entered the room having just gotten back from night patrol. It took the long-haired brunette a few minutes to join them, snuggling against her half-sister's back.

"What's going on?" the Japanese admiral in charge of Yokosuka asked as he found himself missing more than half his destroyer squadrons from the mess hall.

Rika grimaced where she was standing beside him. While not his secretary, Admiral Goto had seemingly decided she needed to learn things about command in spite of being one of the smallest ships. "Naka-chan did a stream yesterday," she admitted slowly. "I think… even with the warnings she put out, a lot of the destroyers watched it."

Admiral Goto frowned, turning to the young destroyer girl. "What was so bad about this stream, that over half my destroyers are nowhere to be found?"

Rika flinched, grimacing again. "We… played some horror games. One was a remake of Shivers…"

"That doesn't sound too bad," Goto muttered.

"Aimed at someone that just gets 'amused' by things that scare most people, then I played Ghost Master, followed by a version of Realms of the Haunting set up like Shivers and the last was Five Nights at Freddy's." Rika took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Zephyr-chan and Crow-chan had played it before, so they talked a bit about the lore behind it, between that and some of the jump scares…."

She grimaced again, remembering what had been said. "The stream is probably up on YouTube by now, but I don't know why so many of the destroyers watched it when we told them not to. Yuudachi-chan and Mutsuki-chan I can understand, I was part of the stream and they were with me, the others." She shrugged helplessly.

On the opposite side of the admiral, Ooyodo frowned, using a tablet computer to pull up the relevant videos and handing it to the admiral, whose face went bleaker and paler as the stream went on, even with the repeated warnings from the stream participants.

"Admiral!" a yell sounded from outside the mess hall. "We have a problem!" The young woman that rounded the corner skidded to a stop in front of the admiral. She looked worried, her short, dark hair, dishevelled and her uniform not on correctly. It took Rika a moment to recognise her as Tenryuu, DesDiv Six's 'minder'.

"Is it something to do with the stream from Naka making DesDiv Six not want to come out from wherever they are?" Goto asked, sounding much calmer than he looked, as Tenryuu entered the room.

Tenryuu blinked as she came to a stop. "I… what?" she asked, looking around blankly, "Eh… maybe? All three of them were hiding under Inazuma's bed this morning; nothing I could do would get them out, something about ghosts and killer robots or something out to get them?"

Goto pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in a brief prayer. "Fubuki, get Naka and meet us outside the destroyer dorms. Tenryuu, Ooyodo with me."

"Hai!" all three shipgirls snapped salutes before Rika dashed off, the remaining trio starting for the destroyer dorms.

A few minutes later, Ooyodo, Rika, Hikaru, Tenryuu and Goto were standing outside the dorm shared by Destroyer Division Six with Hikaru looking worried.

"I don't blame you for this one, Naka," Goto said. "From the evidence I've seen, you clearly stated that the stream was not destroyer safe, even asked the destroyers in the group whether they wanted to leave, however, I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to replay that game on your stream or play any of its sequels, or even any similar games." He pointed at the lump of just starting to move destroyers. "Not when they have this much of an effect on base personnel."

"Hai, teitoku," Hikaru responded, snapping a salute. "I honestly didn't know that there would be any destroyers watching the stream apart from the ones actually in it or living with one in it, sir." She shifted slightly. "One of the reasons for the warnings was because I knew the game was adult rated."

Goto nodded and sighed, "Tenryuu, see if you can get them to come out and get something to eat. Fubuki, try getting your dorm mates out of your dorm." He paused for a moment, frowning, "Fubuki?"

"Yes, admiral?" asked Rika, looking up at him.

"You were involved in this stream, correct?"

"Yes admiral."

Goto frowned slightly. "Were you in your quarters during the stream?" He got a nod from the younger destroyer. "How thick would you say these walls are?"

Rika, Hikaru, Tenryuu and Ooyodo shared a blank look before realisation dawned and Rika and Hikaru's faces paled. "You think they didn't watch the stream but heard it through the walls, admiral?" Hikaru asked, getting a nod. She grimaced, wincing. "Yeah… that might explain it, if we were loud enough that it went through the walls…."

"Then it's possible the entire dorm heard it, I'm sorry admiral, I didn't realise that might happen," Rika said weakly.

"Not your fault, ladies," Goto replied, "though we still need to be careful about streaming in the future if this is possible. No more horror games, Naka."

Naka nodded, "Hai, teitoku!" She saluted the admiral.

Staggering slightly as she made her way into the kitchen of the house she and the Jones twins shared with their aunt, Robyn blinked at the smell of cooked bacon even as the tiling on the wall blurred to her sight. Blinking her eyes clear, she yawned, staggering to the table and flopping down on an empty stool. "How are…" she trailed off with another yawn, "you two awake so early?"

The twins shared a look before turning to Robyn, "Practice," they responded together. "More seriously though," Sally continued, letting Robyn pick from the bacon, eggs, beans, toast, cereals, sausages and other breakfast foods on hand, "you sort of get used to running on little sleep when you get a night shift followed by a morning one while running one of your required sea voyages as a navy cadet."

Megan nodded, dipping her toast in the bean sauce on her plate. "There's also the training we've been doing," she added. "A lot of the time we have an hour or two training in the morning before school so we got used to being awake early enough to do it and get to school, though we normally have earlier nights than some of our classmates."

Sally shrugged, popping the toast in her mouth and chewing slowly. "Healthy body, healthy mind and the fact that well, we tend to attract trouble so being able to deal with it is a good thing, even if 'dealing with it' comes down to running like hell and hoping someone else notices."

"And caffeine," Megan finished, nodding to the partly empty 24-pack of cans of cola along with the tea pot and coffee pot set out on the table for them. "You're probably going to want to figure out what you want to do in what amounts though," she continued after eating some of her bacon. "I don't know about anything else, but the two of you are probably going to be running convoys, meaning you're probably going to be running long trips and watches for abyssals."

Robyn blinked, rubbing her eyes clear, she looked at the twins for a moment before taking a can and cracking it open, guzzling down probably half of it in one hit. "How… common are we talking about?" she asked after a few moments for her brain to start working properly.

Sally shrugged her shoulders. "No clue, but I think it's something like two weeks' run at cruise for us to get from here to the US East Coast, depending on where we're aiming along it." She cocked her head slightly, stirring her beans. "It's probably a week or two to most of the Med and maybe a month if we did a non-stop to Japan. I think those are the most likely places to go, bar maybe up to Norway, Denmark and Russia from the North Sea routes, though I'd think Scapa would take most of those runs."

Pausing in eating her breakfast, Robyn frowned. "Can we even do that?" she asked.

"I've heard of soldiers managing to do some things while pretty much asleep," Megan answered slowly. "I'm not sure about shipgirls though, but with your rigging active… maybe, or you might be on rotating watches, so some patrolling the convoy while others rest, then swap. Not sure how they'd handle you rigging up or getting on and off the waves though."

Sally frowned, chewing her own food slowly. "The others might know," she said after swallowing what was in her mouth. Hearing a beep, she pulled out her phone and tapped in the unlock code so she could look at the message.

[Hikaru: Thanks for the help on the stream girls; unfortunately we spooked a lot of the DDs here. Teitoku ordered me not to stream horror again. ]

"Huh… I didn't think what we streamed was that bad, at least not compared to actually playing Fatal Frame or something of the like," commented Megan while she looked at her own phone.

Robyn gave the pair an arch look. "You two pretty much said straight out that one of the people in Five Nights at Freddy's was turned into jelly inside a robot suit and that's without the skeletons and other things in the games you pair played," she deadpanned. "Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't think that the person you mentioned ended up something like the clankers in Realms of the Haunting."

The twins shared a look for a moment. "Okay," Sally replied, "I'll grant you that a lot of people aren't as used to horrifying sights as we are, but the amount of horror media about, some of which are a lot worse than what we played, I'm surprised it was as much of an issue as it apparently was," she admitted while Megan went back to her food.

All three ate in silence for several minutes before their phones beeped an incoming message.

[Cmdr. Glenn: Susan, Robyn, Sally. All three of you need to meet me at the boathouse with your rigging at 0900. Stock up on munitions if you can. Megan, meet Angela at the base's truck lot at the same time. You two will be meeting your driver there. He will explain things.]

Looking up from the message, Megan frowned at her phone's clock. If she was working things out right, then given it was 07:15am, they had an hour and three quarters to eat and then get to their destinations. That they had been messaged on a weekend meant that it was at least semi-urgent, if it was properly urgent her aunt probably would have ordered them to get to their destinations 'now' or 'yesterday' not a time.

"Guess we're back on the clock," Sally commented, looking up from her phone. "Eat what you can, Robyn, we're going to need to leave by seven forty-five to get through the base." She got a nod from the blonde as she went back to her own food.

Frowning slightly, her fingers moving slowly over the clasps and locks of Robyn's rigging, Sally bit lightly at her lower lip, wondering what her aunt wanted them to do. Obviously they would be going to sea, but what was it from there?

Finding nothing amiss, she patted Robyn's shoulder to let her know that she was ready.

"What do you think we'll be doing?" Robyn asked quietly. She glanced at Sally when the girl shrugged before turning back to watch Susan latching her four main triple turrets onto their mounting arms across from them.

Sally frowned, watching Susan struggle for a moment before going to lend a hand. "Too many possibilities," she admitted, waving Robyn over and getting her help to hoist Susan's rigging up enough that Susan could get into it. "The obvious would be more testing or training, but we might have other issues."

Shifting her shoulders to settle her equipment, Susan frowned. "There is a possibility…" she said, working to lock her rigging into place. "We might be being sent out as part of a convoy or maybe to collect some things for the base." Seeing the teens' looks she shrugged. "I only know that Angela wanted to talk to the Commander while she was shooting that big gun of hers, something about Dauphin getting something for us."

Sally frowned, double checking the locks on Susan's rigging as she did. "So three options," she murmured. "Training, which we all need, convoy, though that's probably only if another group is going out or a run to Brest, which is where Dauphin said she was stationed." It only took her a few moments to plot a course down to the French port on her phone. "The last one will take us probably a day, day and a half round trip depending on how fast we go and how long we're there."

"How do you figure?" Susan asked.

"According to the net, we're about a hundred fifty, hundred sixty miles from Brest," Sally replied. "Which apparently works out around a hundred and thirty-four nautical, one knot is a nautical mile an hour so twenty knots you're looking about six, seven hours direct run." She shrugged, slotting her phone into a protected pocket and closing it. "Presume the same back if we're not slowed or forced to stop and we've got a bit of time to stop over if need be."

The trio looked up at the sound of the door opening before saluting Commander Glenn as she entered.

"At ease ladies," Lauren said, returning the salute. "I presume you're curious about why you were called in today." She got nods from the trio. "Thanks to Robyn and Sally's actions in rescuing Dauphin, she managed to get us several repair baths and several tonnes of repair fluid, the issue is that Brest doesn't have quite enough destroyers to escort the transport north at present."

"So we're going to go down and help the available group escort the transport back?" Robyn asked, getting a nod from Lauren.

Lauren looked between the shipgirls. "Brest is somewhat better off than we are at present, but that only extends to a trio of destroyers, a pair of submarines and a single cruiser compared to our pair of destroyers, one cruiser, one installation and a rhyfelwr, so they're not really in a position to send out many convoys or even patrols."

Sally frowned at what her aunt said. "What I heard through the grapevine made it sound like there were more people there," she said.

"Most were apparently on loan, which ran out," Lauren replied. "Right now there's only a few ships left and not enough for even a short convoy run, so you three are going down to meet up with the French surface ships to escort the transport back here." She frowned slightly, looking past the trio for a moment. "It should take around a day, but I've informed your school that you won't be in tomorrow, Sally, Robyn."

Nodding, Sally lightly bit her lip, sucking it thoughtfully. "Do we know who we're supposed to be meeting?" she asked. "I know Britain got some French ships away during the War, but a lot of the others were sunk or pretty much run by Nazis."

Pulling out a tablet, Lauren frowned as she checked through the messages she had. "Light cruiser La Galissonnière, destroyers Le Mars, Le Malin and Vauquelin along with submarines Dauphin and Ajax," she replied.

"Weren't they Vichy ships during the War?" Susan asked. "Is it likely that they'll have issues working with British shipgirls?"

Sally frowned. "Dauphin shouldn't, given we rescued her not too long ago," she replied. "The others… it probably depends on how much they remember being ships and if they had any encounters, there was something involving Hood, I think." She shrugged after a couple of minutes, turning her attention back to her aunt. "Do we know why the contents of the transport couldn't be sent over land and through the Chunnel?" she asked.

Lauren shrugged slightly. "There's nothing that I've seen to indicate why they sent it by sea," she replied.

"What about abyssals?" Robyn asked. "Do we know about any along our route?"

"There haven't been any more reported sightings since the two of you rescued Dauphin, but abyssals can spoof most electronics so I wouldn't rule out an encounter," Lauren replied. "If you do encounter any though, your priority is to get the transport back to Plymouth in one piece and come back alive yourselves."

Susan shifted slightly, looking uncomfortable. "Uh, ma'am, are we supposed to be there at a certain time?"

"Today," Lauren replied. "I've not heard any specific time beyond that though," she continued. She checked her tablet, frowning slightly at the time. "That said; it's going to take around sixteen hours for a round trip presuming you're not slowed, so you'd best get started. Dismissed," she finished.

Nodding, Sally saluted and turned towards the ramp heading down into the water. Pressing the door control, she stepped onto the water's surface, feeling it flooding through her drive shafts again. "Once we leave here, turn south to the Channel, we'll see if we can't angle slightly south-west to pick up the north-west tip of France and follow it down to Brest," she said as the others joined her.

Getting nods from the others, Sally took a deep breath and let it out slowly as the door finished rising. "HMS Zephyr… launch!" she called, bringing her drives up and heading out of the boathouse.

"HMS Zenith, launch!" said Robyn, following her out.

Susan shifted, watching the pair for a moment before starting after them, "HMS Minotaur, launch!"

Making her way into Devonport's truck lot, Megan looked around for a moment before spotting Angela near one of the trucks. Walking over, she frowned slightly, scanning the area. Most of the trucks were standard military ones, but the two near where Angela was waiting looked like MAC trucks, navy colours, but not something they showed that often.

"Do we know where we're heading and what we're supposed to be collecting?" she asked as she reached Angela, causing the brunette to jump.

Shaking herself off, Angela turned to look at Megan, pushing her glasses up her nose. "I-I'm not sure what we're supposed to be getting, but it's supposed to be coming from Edinburgh, from the College of Science and Engineering at their university."

Megan frowned, sucking her lip. All the way to Edinburgh was going to be a long trip. That it looked like they might be using a pair of HGVs suggested that what they were fetching would probably be big and heavy all in, though whether that was a few big items or a lot of small ones, was up in the air.

"Miss Jones?" Angela started, drawing Megan's attention back to her. "Is there anything I should be aware of while doing this? Commander Glenn didn't say much about what was expected of us."

Megan looked over at her, frowning slightly. "I'm not sure what the Commander wants beyond collecting things and bringing them back," she admitted with a shrug. "That said; if we've got an NCO – that is a non-commissioned officer – with us, listen to them. There's a saying that goes something like 'an NCO that knows what is happening outranks an officer that doesn't'," she stated and shifted uncomfortably.

"There's more than a few others around, Middy," a male voice sounded from around the truck. From around the truck came a balding man in a naval working uniform with a trio of gold chevrons picked out in red on his shoulders.

"Heard you two talkin'," he said, pulling a box of something from his pocket and taking a white stick from it to put between his lips. "Don't worry, kid," he said, seeing Angela's expression harden. "I don' smoke, used to, but it's cheaper on my wallet to get candy." He paused, contemplating the candy stick. "Cheaper on my lungs too," he added after a moment.

Shaking her head, Megan sighed. "You don't change, do you, Sergeant Grant?" she asked.

"No more'n your grand-pappy, Middy," the sergeant replied dryly before turning to Angela. "Flynn Grant, Sergeant, 47 Commando," he introduced, offering a hand.

"Angela Kilburn," she responded, accepting the calloused hand. "Are you our driver?" she asked.

Flynn nodded. "Aye, I am," he replied. "Quite the trip for the two of you, though I suppose your commander has her reasons." He sucked softly on the candy stick in his mouth for a moment. "Supposed to be a good number of things we're getting, more'n the standard military truck'll take in a run. Electronics and metals or crystals mostly," he said.

Shifting back slightly, Megan frowned. "So what are our orders and do we have a shopping list for the trip?" she asked.

"Got it in the cab," Flynn replied, thumbing over his shoulder at the truck they were standing next to. "As for orders, you two are with me in truck one, you're supposed to be learning logistics from the ground up, meaning you're doing the runs. You're also supposed to act as bodyguard to Miss Kilburn, Middy, not that there should be problems, but if things have happened once…"

"They can happen again," Megan finished getting a nod from Flynn.

"Exactly," he nodded. "Got something for you two in the truck as well, since at least one of you will have issues with human level threats," Flynn added, thumbing at the truck again.

Angela raised a hand. "How many trucks are we taking?" she asked when Flynn nodded to her.

Flynn shrugged. "Just the two," he replied, "and you don't need to raise your hand, leastwise not when there's only a few of us. Got a few other chaps from 47 Commando driving the other truck, four of us all in, so two can drive while two rest," he continued.

"And we're going as a learning experience or something?" guessed Megan. "They normally sent me or my sister to different departments unless it was one of our training cruises, then it was usually aboard ship or with an escort in port," she explained seeing Angela's curious expression.

"Maybe, maybe," Flynn murmured, "Your commander did say something about needing to ensure Kilburn here knew her way around a requisition order, and not just the desk side of things." He smirked at Angela for a moment before turning at the sound of several others approaching. Recognising the group approaching as others from his unit, he waved to them before turning back to Megan and Angela. "Alright, since the boys are here," he started, "You two should mount up."

The pair nodded, clambering into the truck, Angela having some difficulty due to unfamiliarity. Once they were settled in, Flynn climbed up on the driver's side and slammed the door closed.

"Before we start out," Flynn said, climbing past Megan to get into the back. He emerged a few moments later with a pair of plain boxes that he handed to Megan before returning to the back to repeat the procedure for Angela. "You're going on an official mission, even if it isn't one that should be dangerous, you should have some personal protection."

Megan frowned, opening the boxes to find a standard commando knife, an all-black dagger with a seven inch blade. Taking it from the box, she checked it before placing it in the sheath provided with it and strapping it to her leg.

The other box contained a smooth metal handgun with a slightly curved pistol grip that had been painted or dyed bright blue. Picking it up, Megan checked to ensure it had the safety on and it wasn't loaded before looking it over, pointedly neither looking down its barrel nor pointing said barrel at anyone else.

"That there is the Accuracy International 5JL Commando laser gun – trainer," Flynn told them. "It can still burn someone's eyes out if you shoot them there though, leaving them permanently blind short of a replacement."

"If this is the trainer… what's the real one like?" Megan asked, placing the handgun back in its box. Reaching over, she stopped Angela looking straight down the other gun's barrel. "Don't look down the barrel, even if these are trainers, well, you heard Sergeant Grant just. Even though you are a shipgirl, if you blinded yourself, you would need an eye replacement."

Flynn smirked at the pair of them and started the truck. "Let's just say that most of the lasers you find in games are less than a single watt, the 5JL is five watts so it can burn through things after a while, but it's safe enough for most greenies, mostly it uses the power for better range," he explained, turning the wheel and accelerating slowly out of the lot. "The real lasgun is in the kilowatt range and can match most standard handguns at least, with much more ammunition."

"Safe, huh?" asked Megan dryly.

"Aye, least as long as they don't do something stupid like try using it to light a smoke," Flynn replied just as dryly. "Saw a couple of the lads burn their eyebrows off that way, and they were lucky it wasn't something more sensitive."

Angela blinked a couple of times, looking down at the weapons in the boxes on her lap. Listening to the other pair conversing, she wondered once again just how much she didn't know about what went on in the military and what else they protected people against.