Chapter 28: Battleship Bath Time
Battleship Washington sipped at her milk as she let the mess hall hustle and bustle carry on around her, a cloak of backscatter and noise almost as good as the gloom of a moonless night. She detested coffee in the morning, or any other time for that matter. Caffeine made her jittery… flighty… everything a battleship shouldn't be.
She hummed to herself, chewing the rubbery end of her pencil as she stared at the notebook—one-subject, college ruled, spiral bound—and the mass of half-solved differential equations scrawled down in her own rigid handwriting. Shell trajectories, aerodynamic effects, relative speed and bearing… all the morsels that made up a proper firing solution.
Wash scowled, her brows knitting as she stared down at the thrice-erased section of paper. As a battleship, she swam as much in math as she did in water. With her fire-control-computer, she should be able to acquire a solution in seconds. She understood the theory, she could do it on instinct, yet reproducing the math by hand was proving beyond her mental abilities.
"Having trouble, ma'am?" asked a the familiar voice of Yeoman Gale.
The battleship sighed, setting her pencil down across her work. "Could say that," she said. With the frustrating math problem temporarily pushed to the back of her mind, Wash suddenly became aware of the hunger gnawing at her stomach. "Just working on some homework," she said reaching for a piece of nutella-covered toast.
"Homework?" Gale gave the battleship a questioning look. Or… Wash was fairly certain it was a questioning look. It was hard to tell for certain when everything below the Yeoman's eyes was hiding behind Wash's mountain of still-uneaten tost.
Wash held up a finger as she finished chewing. It simply wasn't proper to speak with one's mouth full. At least not when one has unlimited time. "Mmm," she swallowed, smiling at the sensation of warm, sweet toast sliding down towards her belly. "Differential equations," she said, holding up the notebook.
Gale's face went a shade redder, and she hurriedly took a bite of her eggs. Wash didn't mind a bit. Yeoman Gale had been most kind to her, showing her around, loaning her the most comfortable pair of pajamas Wash had ever worn… the battleship was more than happy to give her her time.
While the Yeoman ate, Wash took another bite of toast. Sadly, this particular piece was a bit overdone, and her bite sent crumbs of charred bread falling all over the swell of her bust.
"Oh… dangit," she muttered, pulling the front of her shirt off her skin. As she'd feared… a few crumbs had fallen down her collar and were sitting against her breasts. They'd no-doubt annoy her until she'd properly changed, but that was an activity for another, more private, setting. For the time being, Wash contented herself with brushing away the crumbs that came to rest over the crisp fabric of her sailor top.
"Why, uh…" The Yeoman's face had somehow gotten even redder. "Why're you doing Diff-eq?"
"Hmm?" Wash glanced up from her impromptu cleaning. "Oh, practice," she said. "I'm trying to get a better grasp on the…" she pursed her lips, running a finger along her jawline as she thought, "The mathematics behind my FCCs."
"Really?" said Gale with an incredulous tilt of her head.
"Some people consider me a lucky ship," said Wash, pausing just long enough to take a long sip of her milk. "But I don't believe in luck. I owe all my success to my crew." She set the glass down with a soft tap of plastic-on-plastic, "Without their many hours of dedicated study and practice, I wouldn't have half the battle stars I do. If any."
"That's, uh…" Gale gulped, hurriedly scarfing another fork-full of egg into her mouth.
Wash smiled, letting the Yeoman take her time.
"That's one way of looking at it," finished Gale. "And, uh… Look. Skipper put me in charge of looking after you girls. You haven't left the base since you returned…" she shrugged. "Anything you wanna do?"
Wash thought for a second, her fingers tapping out a cadence against the skin of her bare thigh. "I should probably go shopping," she said, "I can't keep borrowing your clothing."
"Oh," Gale's shoulders slumped. "I… okay, we can do that."
"And I'd like to replace the clothes I borrowed," said Wash, smiling as earnestly as she could. "I might have, uh… stretched out some of your shirts."
Gale's shoulders slumped even more. "Yeah, uh… yeah, probably." She gathered a forkfull of eggs, stared at it for a second, then set it back down on the plate with a sigh. "I'll, uh… I'll see you around," she said, collecting her plates and standing to her feet.
"Of course," said Wash, offering a parting wave at the Yeoman as she walked over to the dish return. Hmm… she reached for her pencil, scribbling down another line of calculations. She'd solve the problem, even if it took her all day.
Jersey felt herself fade back into consciousness, the wispy fabric of her dreams—assuming she actually had any—slipping away like mooring chains as she departed from the comforting berth of sleep.
There wasn't a shrieking bosun's whistle this time. Just the warm purr of a sleeping escort carrier curled up atop her like a wet, warm, incredibly adorable blanket. Jersey smiled, thanking whatever god looked after animate-warships-who-were-also-girls as she blinked her one good— no, actually, as she blinked both eyes open.
Her faeries must've fitted her replacement gun directors during the night. Everything felt so much sharper, so much more in focus… She could count the individual tiles above her instead of seeing a smooth surface of undisturbed white. She could hear the chimes of tugboats in the harbor, she could feel that-
That she wasn't alone. Well, that she and White weren't alone. The sleepy American battleship gave her tiny charge a warm hug, glancing over at the presence she felt a few yards down the tub.
Another girl was sitting in the bath, her face a mask of concentration as she folded a towel into a crane. She was a flat-top, obviously. But her flight deck was just about the only thing "flat" about her. Even with the suspiciously well-placed steam clouds, Jersey could easily trace the lines of the girl's… rather excessive… displacement.
Probably just those stupid-ass stacked hangers. "Yo," Jersey waved at the other girl. "Kaga, right?"
The girl looked over, her face a stoic mask of serenity. "Mm," she said with a nod.
"Figured," said Jersey, looking over the girl's- over Kaga's figure. Purely for informational purposes. She was built like a battleship, that much was obvious. But what surprised her was the glaring lack of any battle damage. The girl didn't have as much as a scratch on her. "Just come in for a dip?" she asked.
Kaga stopped her towel-folding work. Her head swiveled over to face Jersey with oiled, mechanical precision. "No," she said with a very tiny shake of her head. "I've come to repair my hull."
Jersey cocked an eyebrow. Kaga was Tosa-class. A battleship with battleship armor. She should be able to take a hit, right? "Where'd, uh… where'd you get hit?"
"I didn't," said Kaga, snapping her towel-crane tight with a crack of fabric going taut. She took a deep breath, her excessive chest swelling even more excessively as she held the air in her lungs. Would it kill the JMSDF to issue swimsuits? "At least, not to my hull."
Jersey cocked an eyebrow, leaning as close as she could while dragging a sleeping escort carrier like a blanket.
"A submarine penetrated my task force," said Kaga, staring intently at a ripple as it propagated though the warm tub. "And fired a single torpedo that sheered off my rudder." The battleship-come-carrier shot Jersey a rueful glance, "It didn't even detonate."
Jersey shrugged, "Yeah… that's a Mark fourteen for you."
Kaga nodded wordlessly.
Jersey scowled. Something was bothering the carrier, she could smell it. Something was eating the stoic Japanese fleet carrier from the inside, and Jersey couldn't just let it happen. She'd spent her her entire military career protecting carriers, looking out for them ran in her blood. Even if Kaga wasn't as adorable as little White. "Okay, seriously…" she said in her most tender voice, "What's up?"
Kaga shot her a look of feigned confusion.
"You're being all…" Jersey waved her hand in the air, "Broody McBroodster over there. Seriously, what's got you to mad?"
Kaga took another deep breath, sinking into the water until she could rest her head on the poolside. "I returned from battle before my patrol was complete," she said, "Now another must fight in my stead."
Jersey blinked. "What?" she grunted. "Ships get juggled all the time… Goto's smart. He'll figure it out."
"My country's not like yours," said Kaga.
"Well…" Jersey couldn't help but think of the singing, dancing traffic cone-cruiser she'd sailed over with. "No shit."
"We do not have limitless resources. Nor can we afford to gamble on improvisation. We sit on the razor's edge." Kaga pursed her lips, her jaw tensing ever so subtly as she stared into the distance. "Discipline, professionalism, precision… even grace. These are our saving virtues in this war."
Jersey nodded. The Jap carrier was right, after all. She'd been born after Midway. She'd never know the feeling of fighting an angry giant… She didn't say a word, she couldn't. She just sat back in the water, retreating to her own section of the tub.
White mumbled something, her eyes blinking open just long enough to confirm that Jersey was still there before cuddling up again.
"You, uh…" Jersey glanced at the escort carrier pretending to sleep. "You know I know you're awake, right?"
White shook her head.
"Little fucker," said Jersey with a forced laugh as she peeled White off her breast. "Look, I gotta get breakfast."
"Okay," mumbled White, curling up into a tight ball as she let Jersey out of her grasp.
Jersey pulled herself out of the pool, looking from the sleepy escort carrier to the brooding fleet-carrier. "You know," she said to Kaga, "You forgot a virtue."
Kaga raised an eyebrow.
"Friendship." Jersey glanced over at White. Without a battleship to snuggle, the tiny carrier was slowly drifting her way over towards Kaga. "You got allies now."
"We did before," said Kaga, "The Tripartite pact-"
"Doesn't count," said Jersey. "Germany's on the other side of the world and they had too much shit to handle by themselves. And Italy…" she smirked, "Italy's just fucking useless at… things. They helped us more than they ever helped you."
Kaga's face was the same stoic mask as ever, but Jersey swore she saw an extra note of warmth creep into the carrier's porcelain cheeks. She liked to think it was because of her speech, but… the escort carrier latching on to Kaga's waist was another possibility.
"'m helping," said White.
Jersey shrugged. She couldn't think of a better way to cheer up Kaga than cuddling with an escort carrier, so she contented herself with a quiet nod. "Be nice, White."
White nodded. "'s so warm," she purred.
Kaga dipped her head towards the battleship.
Jersey smiled. She was about to say something profound when her belly let out a truly earth-shaking rumble. Okay. Food. Food, then she could be profound. "You know where to find me."