Chapter 54: Yarr...

Jersey felt her turbines hum a million revs a minute as she stared at the unremarkable hotel-room door. The muscles in her thick legs twitched under her massive weight, and she couldn't keep her lips from quivering with each breath. She brought her hand up to knock against the painted wood, but stopped at the last second.

For what felt like years, the battleship stood motionless, her hand hovering an inch off the door while she cursed her own stupid mind. There were a million things she wanted to do. She wanted to get out of these blood soaked clothes. She wanted to keep eating until she was truly full, not just adequately supplied.

She wanted to do… she wasn't even sure what it was. But after seeing Task Force Hammer in skimpy swimwear, the battleship knew she wanted to do… something. But every time she tried digging though her log to figure out what it was, all she got back were files so full of redacted ink she could use them as night camouflage.

And those were only the handful of items at the top of her list. She wanted pie, she wanted find someplace quiet to curl up and… and fucking cry herself to sleep like a helpless little shit. But fuck all of that, she was a fucking battleship of the United States Navy. And there was one fucking thing she had to do.

And it was waiting right behind that door. She just had to… work up the fucking balls to knock.

"Okay," breathed the battleship. She slowly brought her hand up into position. "Okay… here we go…" Her knuckles were mere fractions of an inch from the door's surface when an exhausted chuckle sounded from inside the room.

"'s open, you know."

Right. Shit. What now… Jersey winced as her turbines sirred well past their red lines. She'd spent so much time working up the courage to knock, she hadn't even begun to plan for what'd happen after that. "Uh…." she said.

Before she could say anything more eloquent, the door swung open to reveal an exhausted US Army Major. Not just any Major, the Major. The one who… who saved little Heermann. "Morning, Jersey."

"Uh…" Jersey gulped at the air while her brain tried frantically to reboot. "Uh…," She shook her head, "Um… how, uh… how'd you know I was here?

The Major shook his head with a tiny half-smile. "You walk like a stampeding elephant. I heard the floor creak while you were making up your mind."

"Oh," Jersey hung her head. She thought she was being nice and subtle… but apparently not. "Uh. Wait, shit."

"Hmm?" the Major glanced up at the towering battleship. He was… really a mess. A few days stubble was sprouting on his face, and he had the distinct sent of a man who'd spent several days in the same flightsuit.

"Uh, just…" Jersey shoved her hand into her pocket. Stupid stupid… she should have just carried it in her hands… that's the normal way to do it, right? After a few seconds of frantic rummaging, the battleship pulled out a plate heaping with fresh pancakes and sausage. "I, uh… I didn't see you at breakfast, so I thought…"

For a second, the Major just glanced from the piping hot meal to the battleship's vest pocket. Then he shrugged and took the offered plate with a slight nod. "Thanks, J."

"Actually, uh…" The battleship realized she was wringing her hands together like a schoolgirl in front of her first crush, and quickly stuffed them into her pockets. "Major… sir… Solette… what the fuck do I call you?"

"How about Mack?" said Solette as he tossed a sausage link into his mouth.

"Mack… okay," Jersey nodded while she processed that new bit of information. "Okay, Mack. Look, what you did for Heermann-"

Solette did his best to hide a wince.

"-It can't have been easy." Jersey pursed her lips, a scowl forming on her face as her icy-blue eyes started to melt. "But, uh… Fuck this is hard for me to say, but it's something… It's not something I could have done."

"Look, Jersey, I-"

"You saved my little girl," said the battleship. "That's something I'll… I'll never be able to repay."

Solette coughed, and suddenly found his breakfast to be the most interesting thing in the world. "I, uh… I'm a nurse practitioner," he said as he poked at his meal, "It's what we do."

"Still… thank you," The battleship bit the corner of her lip. The Major was busy examining his food instead of accepting her thanks… he was distracted… she had her opening. The big battleship leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on the Major's forehead.

"Jersey?" Solette blinked. Jersey's face instantly blushed deeper than the Kremlin in October.

"Uh…" Jersey gulped. Then she swung on her heel and bolted with all the explosive speed a quarter million horsepower could produce. "I'llBeInTheDocksIfYouNeedMe!" she yelped.

—|—|—

"What's up doc?" Yeoman Gale took a loud bite out of a carrot and did her very best to maintain a more-or-less even face. She failed. Miserably. The confused look on Crowning's face when he turned to look at her pushed her over the edge, and Gale let out a snorting laugh that sent chunks of half-eaten carrot spraying across the professor's room.

"You doing okay, sailor?" Crowning's face was utterly stoic, except for the slight inquisitive tilt of his eyebrow.

"Uh.." Gale wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, scrubbing away any loose carrot chunks that might have been clinging to her face. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

Crowning's other eyebrow slowly crept up to join the first.

"I was eating when I got your text!" Gale held up her hands—and her half-chewed carrot—defensive. "You know, healthy snack?" She shrugged, and gave her belly a pat—a belly she was pleased to note was a little slimmer and significantly tighter than it had been a few months ago. "C'mon, it was funny."

"Yeah," Crowning finally let his stoic facade fall as a wide grin spread across his face, "It was."

"Told ya!" Gale pumped her fist in triumph. "But uh… seriously, what's up?"

"Well, I was trying to figure out why our summonings have petered out, but then-" the professor waved at the mountain of mashed potatoes, cooked ham, and awkwardly-sliced apples sitting on his desk next to an unopened bottle of Captain Morgan- "Dee, Bannie, and Kidd insisted on making me lunch."

"Well that was nice of-" Gale stopped mid sentence. Did… did she just see what she thought she just saw? "Is that?"

"Rum, yes," Crowning stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, "Kidd insisted I take it."

"And suddenly the world makes sense," said Gale. Then she blinked. Kidd was a Fletcher. She looked like a very precocious little twelve year old with a Jolly Rodger tied around her head like a bandanna. She did not look twenty-one. "Where'd she get it?"

Crowning could only offer a timid shrug.

"Are you going to finish it?" asked Gale, her voice effortlessly sliding from confusion to honey-flavored request. Rum wasn't her favorite form of alcohol, but she'd be doing the ignoble family of junior NCOs a disservice if she turned down free booze. Besides, if she was going to DM for Dee of all people, she'd more than water in her.

"Do you want it?" sighed the Professor.

Gale nodded so vigorously her bun smacked against the nape of her neck. "Really a lot."

"Never really was a rum man myself," said Crowning as he handed over the unopened bottle.

"Fair enough," said Gale as she slipped the bottle into one of her pockets for safekeeping. "What'cha working on?"

"Well," Crowning motioned to a white board set up opposite his desk. The names of every kanmusu summoned, from Akron all the way back to Kongou, were jotted down along a time line in handwriting that managed to be utterly illegible and perfectly readable at the same time. "I've listed down every girl who's shown up."

"And…" Gale toyed with the tip of her nose as she stared at the list. There was a pattern there, she knew it. The girls came in spurts, a few battleships or heavy cruisers, then a cluster of destroyers, then more heavies… The tonnage jerkily snaked up and down like a thoroughly drunk wave. "What'd you figure out?"

"Nothing, actually," said the professor. The corners of his mouth twisted in a scowl as he stared down the emotionless writing. "The interval's different every time."

"Did you try checking the dates?"

"Yup." Crowning nodded, "Went back though a thousand years of Japanese history… some of the girls came back on famous anniversaries, but not all of them."

"Dammit." Gale let out a low hiss as she stared at the inscrutable time line. She was never good at this kind of thing. "Oh!"

"You see something?" Crowning bolted to the board.

"Oh, uh… shit, no," Gale shook her head. "I just, uh, I got the results back from the lab."

Crowning slowly turned on his heel to look at the sailor. Then he blinked.

"The… the analysis of the metal that washed up?"

Another set of blinks.

"From that Dreadnought Jersey munched in the straight. I swear I told you about that."

"No…" trailed off the Professor. "I think I'd have remembered something like that."

"Oh, well…" Gale shrugged, "They found a few chunks of the damn thing and rushed them over to the U-Dub for testing. It uh…" She rocked on her heels and chewed her lip for a second, "It's really melodramatic now, but as far as they know, it's just… steel."

"Nothing special about it?" said Crowning. He was listening, but Gale could tell his eyes were focused on something a million miles away.

"I mean… it was Vickers-hardened, but yeah. Just normal steel."

Crowning rested his chin on his hand, and for a moment he was silent in thought. "Gale?"

"Yeah?"

"Could I borrow… say three or four pounds?"

Gale scrunched up her face. "Why do you ask?"

Crowning smiled, and then he told her.