Chapter 66: Not Fat, "Treaty".

Heavy Cruiser San Fransisco of the United States Navy knew a truck when she saw one. Yes, the years since her scrapping had brought their share of changes to the old logistics standby—it was painted tan instead of green, for one—but a truck was, essentially a truck. Based on the multitude of chunky tires and the low rumble of an idling diesel engine, Frisco guessed the truck she was being herded towards was in the ten-ton range. At first, she thought such a massive vehicle was overkill for transporting just herself and Wash. Then she put her foot up on the ladder rung.

A loud whine of stressed metal shot though the air, and the truck listed noticeably. Frisco's cheeks flushed a pale red and she scowled at the inanimate hunk of impertinent metal. She was a damn treaty cruiser. She watched her weight like any of them, she was notoverweight.

Okay, maybe a few tons, but that was it. And dammit, she put the weight on after the war broke out, who could blame a girl for getting a teeny tiny bit heavy under circumstances like that.

Luckily, nobody around her seemed to react to either the cruiser's angry blush or her improbably massive weight. And even if they did, the pathetic screech of the truck's suspension bottoming out under Wash's weight more than covered it.

Frisco glanced over her shoulder at the dazzle-camouflaged Marines struggling to keep a straight face. She choose to believe they were reacting to Wash's excessive displacement, not her own.

Besides, the battleship carried it better anyways.

Frisco hurriedly ducked though the sheet-steel door into the passenger compartment built around the truck's bed. "Wow," A breath of surprise slipped though her lips as she settled on the warm bench seat.

Everything was so much nicer than she was used too. The walls were all freshly painted in a calming shade of tan. The seat was… she wasn't even sure what that material was, but she knew it felt amazing on her stern.

The cruiser shook her hips to work her ass firmly into the comfortable padding, a smile spreading across her slender face as comfort surrounded her. It might be a little immature, but her years brawling on the front line had taught her never to give up a chance to enjoy herself.

"This is like…" Frisco bounced on her stern, "really comfortable."

"I know," Wash grinned as she settled into her own seat. The battleship had—somehow—switched from that fetching tight-jeans and tighter-sweater ensemble to a more familiar-looking uniform.

A tight blue WAVES jacket—albeit with the sleeves apparently missing—hugged the battleship's chest and did her figure no sins, and a very very short splinter-pattern skirt showed off the younger girl's shorts and thigh-high stockings. A snow-white scarf draped rakishly around the battleship's shoulders and a neat black turtleneck completed the look.

"Wow, uh," Frisco glanced down at her own grungy outfit, idly playing with the ragged hem of her top. She didn't even have a full shirt left, she'd— the fabric was torn off just below her treaty-compliant breasts, and her shorts were grungy and stained with ground-in salt. "Your outfit's so much nicer than mine."

"Don't worry," Wash licked her finger tip and rubbed a loose spec of dirt off the cruiser's slender nose. "I think you look beautiful."

Frisco felt her cheeks flush a hot red as she sank into her chair. She was a cruiser, damnit. She was supposed to run away from battleships, not get complimented by them!

But before the cruiser could stew in her flustered discomfort for more than a few minutes, a Voice cut though the air. Frisco hadn't heard it before, but she still knew it by heart. The Voice. If the CNO was God, The Voice was his prophet. The Admiral. HerAdmiral.

"San Fransico, it's good to have you back," rumbled a calmly commanding voice with enough gravel in it to build a small island. It was the kind of voice that sent shivers down the old cruiser's spine and set butterflies aflutter in her stomach.

"Sir?" Frisco glanced around for the source of the voice. She was sure she'd been alone, but she wouldn't put outright magic outside Her Admiral's abilities. After all, she was a cruiser sitting in the back of a truck.

Wash coughed and pointed to the front of the little compartment. A black-framed screen—which until now Frisco had assumed was just decoration—now held the living image of Her Admiral within its bezel. In full, living color.

"Wow," Frisco breathed, "This really is the future."

"I know," said Wash with equal carefree reverence.

Frisco blinked. "Oh, uh… shit. USS San Fransisco, CA-38 reporting." Frisco's hand started to move to her brow, then stopped half-way. "Uh… wait. Do I salute or do I not?"

Her Admiral just smiled. "As you were, San Fransisco, I know you girls need a little slack."

Frisco nodded, a flood of relief flushing though her system. "Thank you sir. And… call me Frisco."

"Alright, Frisco," The Admiral jotted something down on a pad just outside the camera's field of view. "Admiral Samuel Williams, I'm your new CO."

"Sir," Frisco offered a curt nod. Her outfit might look like shit, but at least she'd actproper in front of The Brass.

"I understand you've figured most of the situation out for yourself?"

Frisco took a second to gather her thoughts. "More or less, sir. There's an evil, supernatural force lurking in the oceans, and the conventional navy can't or won't engage, so you're using us old girls to spearhead the defense." She blinked, "Is… that about right."

Williams let out a quiet chuckle, "Well done, Frisco. I'd say I'm surprised, but so far all our cruisers have been very insightful."

"Except for Alaska," said Wash, "she's… kinda a dork."

Williams shrugged in acceptance.

Frisco, however, was fixated on the last part of Her Admiral's sentence. "Um, sir?" She clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking, her hazel eyes locked on Her Admiral's, "You said other cruisers. Did… Did any of my sisters come back? Or maybe Atlanta?"

For a second, neither The Admiral or Wash said anything. The two of them just shared a brief glance before Williams turned back to Frisco. "I'm… afraid not, Frisco. You're the first American cruiser back."

"Then how-"

"Allied Cruisers," said Williams.

Frisco's mouth hung slack as she sat back in her chair. Her mind whirled and hummed as she slotted the bits of information she knew into place, and extrapolated the ones she didn't. "They're Japanese," she breathed.

"Frisco?" Williams leaned in to the camera, "How?"

Frisco's hands balled into fists at her side. "So I was right." Her porcelain face cracked into a furious scowl, "Sir…" the cruiser's voice trembled in rage, "We're… trusting the nips?"

Wash coughed, "Frisco, you're-"

"No!" Frisco rounded on the battleship. "No, Wash, don't you… don't even try. I know I look like one of them, but I'm not. Okay?" The cruiser's anger flushed her skin an angry crimson, "I was built down at Mare Island, okay? I'm as American as you are. Besides, it doesn't fucking matter."

Wash nodded, her hands going to her lap while she let the cruiser speak her peace.

"I don't… I don't hate them because of what they are, okay?" said Frisco to nobody in particular. "I hate them for what they did. I was there, okay. None of you were. I wasthere on the seventh. I watched Arizona go up with my own eyes. I saw WeeVee and Okie go down with men still aboard. I…" The cruiser's voice cracked.

"I heard Cassin and Downes scream as they burned," Frisco's voice was barely more than a harsh whisper. "I watched them… clinging to one another as they died. Each trying to comfort the other. I will never forget that."

"That was seventy years ago," said Williams. "What happened seventy years before you were launched?"

Frisco wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "The, uh… the Civil War, sir."

"Frisco, I'm from Virginia," said Williams, "Does that make me a slave-owning traitor?"

"No sir," mumbled the cruiser. "But… sir… if General Lee came back in his prime, that'd be different."

"Maybe," said Williams. "Frisco, one of the first ships to return was the aircraft carrier Kaga."

Frisco's muscles tensed and her fists clenched at her sides.

"There are… nationalist groups in Japan," said Williams, ignoring Frisco's sudden tension as he drilled his words into her head, "groups that deny the Japanese atrocities in China. Groups that would go as far as saying the attack on Pearl Harbor was a just response to American Imperialism."

"Sir! That's-"

"Frisco," Williams' voice wasn't so much harsh as it was commanding. "I am talking."

The cruiser bit her lip, "Yes sir."

"As I was saying," said Williams, "Shortly after her return, Kaga held a press conference to address people who hold such beliefs."

The Admiral's face vanished, replaced by what Frisco recognized as some kind of newsreel. About a dozen Japanese men—both in uniforms and slick business suits—sat flanking… her.The aircraft carrier Kaga, Frisco'd recognize that top-heavy silhouette anywhere.

The men on her sides looked like… people. They talked with one another, adjusted their chairs, fiddled with their ties. But not Kaga. The side-tailed bitch just stared at a single point in space, even her breathing looked regimented and controlled.

"It has come to my attention," said the carrier. Her voice was cold and harsh. The angry growl of a chided warrior. "That there are some among you who believe my actions on December the Seventh, nineteen forty-one to be justified. Honorable, even."

Frisco felt her vision start to tint a bloody red.

"I would ask," the carrier continued with the same cold self-confidence,"That anyone who holds to such a belief reconsider, or commit seppuku."

Frisco felt all her anger melt away in an instant. "What?" On the screen, the men flanking Kaga seemed frozen in horror. One on the end was frantically waving for someone to cut her microphone's feed, but everyone else watched with unmoving focus.

"If they do not," Kaga didn't even seem to notice how horrified her audience was, "I will rescind my protection of the home islands, and offer my services to an honorable navy."

The crowd watched her with mute horror, but the ice-cold carrier wasn't done. "We were wrong," she said. "That is not opinion, that is fact. And refusing the truth, putting face above fact," Kaga leveled an iron-hard stare at one man in particular. Frisco almost felt sorry for the poor bastard. Almost. "Led Japan into a war it could not win before. I will not allow it to happen again."

For a second, the Carrier stood at quiet attention behind her podium. Her hands were folded behind her back and her ice-cold glare swept across the audience like machine-gun fire. Then the picture flashed back to Her Admiral's face.

"I'll add," said The Admiral, "That both Akagi and Kaga made formal requests to visit the Arizona Memorial after the war. Both of them offered to fall on their swords in front of any who wish to observe."

Frisco gulped down a lungful of air.

"So," said Williams, "Do you think we can trust them?"

Frisco took in a long breath. "Seventy years, you say?"

Williams nodded.

"I, uh…" Frisco rubbed at the bridge of her nose, "I think we can give them a shot, sir."

—|—|—

Frisco pressed her eyes closed and focused on the pounding eight-piece harmony of her boilers—her heart banging away against the steel of her chest. She was mad, hell, she was furious, and the downside of this new fleshy body was how damn hard it was to secure from general quarters.

"Frisco?" The tender, almost motherly song of Wash's sweet voice crashed over the cruiser's bow. Even with her eyes screwed shut, the cruiser could see the battleship's worried stare in her voice, sense the hand resting ever so gently on her bare thigh.

"Give me a minute," said the cruiser. She pursed her lips, hissing out a long, slow breath as she calmed her self back down as best she could. She wanted to hate the Japanese carriers for what they'd done, but…

But they'd done everything they could to atone. And Frisco, Frisco of all people, knew they weren't lying. She knew what a face of regret, a face that longs for redemption and atonement looks like. She saw it every damn time she looked in a mirror.

The cruiser felt Wash's hand squeeze at the pale flesh of her thigh, a warm bit of comfort hovering just inside her senses. It felt good, sweet… and comforting. "I'm okay."

Frisco let her eyes flutter open once more. Wash was staring at her with concern writ large on her serene features, and on the screen, even Her Admiral was looking at her with obvious care—almost… love—on his weatherbeaten face.

"I'm, uh," Frisco blushed and tried to brush away a stray strand of obsidian hair. "I'm sorry, sir. That you had to see that."

Williams just nodded. He didn't say a word, but somehow, Frisco knew he loved her. It was plastered all over his face and it beamed from those storm-gray eyes. He loved her. Loved her like a daughter or… or a beloved pet or something, and it warmed the old cruiser's heart.

"So, uh," Frisco rested her hands on her lap, her fingers idly toying with the ragged hem of her shorts. "The war?"

Williams nodded. "We're fighting enemies which, until a few years ago, were just sea-stories and legends. We call them Abyssals." The Admiral paused for a moment, "Frisco… I suggest you brace yourself."

"Aye, sir."

The image on the screen switched from a feed of Her Admiral to something… wrong. It took every shred of restraint the cruiser had just to keep her fist from going through the screen.

"What," Frisco hissed, her fists clenched so tight the steel started to creak and groan at the stress. Her vision flared a brilliant crimson as she bared her teeth at the abomination on the screen.

The rational part of her told her it was a cruiser. Eight guns were mounted in four slope-fronted turrets. A skinny, sickly-looking mast was mounted well back on her superstructure, just ahead of a bulky smokestack. There was nothing particularly beautiful about the ship on the screen, it was a simple brutish design. A ship of war that had no interest in the niceties of peace, but a ship nonetheless.

But, something deep in Frisco's soul screamed at the image. Wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Just looking at it made her blood boil. Fury churned in her stomach at the sight and she didn't stop grinding her teeth until she tasted steel filings in her mouth. That… that thing that abomination should not—could not—exist. She wouldn't allow it. In the corner of her view, she saw Wash tense. The battleship's hands wrapped around the grips of her revolvers, her thumbs hovering over the hammers.

"Sir?" Frisco's voice shook with rage and she had to fight down the urge to scream. "Is that our enemy."

The screen flicked back to the face of Her Admiral. Frisco felt her blood start to cool off—every so slowly, but cool off—and Wash let her guns slide back into their carriers.

"Yes," said Williams. "We call them 'Abyssals,' and so far every girl who's seen them has had the same reaction."

"What…" Frisco trailed off, "What are they?"

"We don't know," said Williams. "No one does. But-"

"But you know they're wrong," breathed Frisco. She didn't know why she felt like this, why her whole being screamed in fury at the very thought that those things were allowed to continue existing. But she never felt hate—felt righteous fury—like this before. "Sir."

"Exactly," said Williams. "Now you know the stakes."

"How are we doing?" asked Frisco.

"The Abysals have been harassing the Atlantic convoys with surface raiders, battleship, and U-boat patrols," said Her Admiral, "But their main theater, and your main concern, is the Pacific."

The screen flickered over to a map of the Pacific ocean. Some of the borders were new, and Frisco wasn't sure exactly what the 'Russian Federation' was, but right this moment, she didn't actually care.

Everything from a few hundred miles off the American West Coast to the International dateline was marked with the angry red stripes of contested waters, and everything west of that was drenched in blood. The only oasis was the sea of Japan, and even that was was tinged pink around Tsushima.

Only a few slender corridors of contested—not even secure but contested—linked America with Japan and Australia. One ran from Washington, up along Alaska, then back down to the Japanese Mainland while another, even skinnier lifeline leapfrogged from Hawaii to Midway to Japan itself. The third skipped from California, to Hawaii, to Samoa, than finally to New Zealand and Australia.

"We lost the Solomons," said Williams with gruff finality. "We lost the Hebrides… hell, it if wasn't for Tiger, we'd have lost the Coral Sea."

"Damn," Frisco cursed under her breath. She'd never met the old cat, but… well, from what she'd read in Janes' the girl had her work cut out for her. "What about the South China Sea?" she asked, pointing to a section of the map marked a slightly lighter shade or red than the rest.

"The Abyssals haven't made any offensive thrusts," said Williams, his voice trailing off in a way that told Frisco a major 'but' was coming. "But any girl who enters is attacked, and any port that gives her shelter is shelled to the ground."

Frisco felt her heart drop to her stomach.

"It's the same story all over the world. The Abyssals are massing their forces to crush Japan and England, trying to starve out the islands. For every other nation, the message is clear: 'let them starve, and we'll let you live. Help, and your life is forfeit'."

"Most of Europe's still helping," said Wash. "France, Italy, even Germany's doing what they can. But nations without a navy are staying out of this fight."

Frisco scowled. She saw what they were doing, understood it even. Smart little bastards, didn't mean she had to like it. "I, uh… I don't really blame them." For a second, she just shook her head in horror, then a thought occurred to her. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

"What about us?" Frisco's eyes narrowed into the kind of focused gaze only a cruiser could truly produce. "We're helping everyone, right? Why aren't they attacking us?"

"They're attacking our convoys at every turn," said Williams, "But they haven't focused an attack against us yet. Probably because until four months ago we didn't have a single girl to our name."

The Admiral took a quick drink from throughly-seasoned coffee mug before continuing. "Our analysts say the Abyssals are redistributing their forces towards us. They're gonna come down on us and they're going to come down hard."

Frisco scowled at the screen. "Sir?"

Williams let out a grunt of acknowledgement.

"How… how'd we hold Hawaii?" asked the cruiser. "I mean, from what Wash and Gale told me, we scrapped a hell of a lot of our heavies."

"Steel-hulls and guts," said Williams. "And a battleship."

Frisco thought for a second, then a smile crossed her face. A real, honest smile. "Big Mo?"

"The one and only." Even Williams' weatherbeaten face cracked into a warm smile.

E/N: Okay, to ward off some potential controversy on this chapter, I'd like to note the author has justified this by noting that Japanese Attackers offering to commit seppuku at the place they attacked is hardly unheard of. Look up Nobuo Fujita for more information.