Chapter 116: Trollbote
Sarah Gale fell asleep with the most beautiful battleship-who-was-also-a-girl cradled protectively in her arms.
It was a very strange feeling, Wash was a hair taller than her, significantly curvier, and in noticeably better shape. And was also the living incarnation of thirty-five thousand tons of fighting American steel. She could kill everyone in the house—hell, probably everyone in the whole damn city—without breaking a sweat if she wanted. And she'd snuggled up in Gale's embrace like a puppy, completely content to put her entire well-being in Gale's hands.
The sailor knew the battleship didn't like being alone, shipgirls of her weight class were notorious for sleeping in clumps. But still… she was just a human. Flesh and blood next to fire and steel. And the battleship had trusted her to watch over her dreams. To escort her through her most vulnerable hours.
It was a truly humbling experience. Of course, it didn't hurt that Wash was really soft. And that her hair smelled faintly of teak and saltwater. And that her breasts felt even softer without a bra in the way. And that she'd spent the whole night slowly grinding that rounded American aft against Gale. The sailor wasn't sure if Wash was doing it on purpose, or if it was a natural consequence of the tiny bed and Wash's shipgirl nature and excessive curviness.
She just knew that she liked it.
But, when Gale slipped from sleep into the walking dream she was living in, Wash had left. The battleship had probably gone to help fix breakfast, or maybe just watch the rain. She liked watching rain. Gale didn't really know why, but there was something adorable about the contented little smile on those regal features when she watched a Washington drizzle.
The sailor wasn't alone though.
A tiny figure, barely a few inches tall, with stumpy limbs barely more than nubs and a minute face dominated by two beady black eyes stood on her collarbone. He—she assumed it was a he, but the little faerie's figure was so squished it was impossible to be sure—wore itty-bitty khaki fatigues, and what looked like an overweight Garand was cradled in his equally miniature arms.
"Um…" Gale blinked. "Hi."
The faerie brought up a hand—or what she assumed was a hand. His tiny arm just kinda… ended in a little nub. Didn't seem to have any problem holding his rifle though—to his ill-fitting helmet in a salute.
"Okay," Gale coughed, and felt something poke her in the chest. Someone had apparently setup machine gun emplacements on her breasts. Tiny sandbags surrounded chibi-versions of browning Machine guns, inadvertently doing a better job of stuffing her bra than Gale'd ever done, which annoyed her more than it should. There was even a flagpole stuck into her belly button with a few miniature mortars setup around it..
Another dozen or so Marine faeries milled around on her body. Some manned the machine-gun emplacements on her chest, while others cleaned their itty-bitty rifles, smoked cigarettes the size of a pencil lead, or brewed up miniature carafes of coffee.
Gale blinked.
Yup, still there.
"Guys?" Gale inched up onto her elbows, careful not to send the machine gunners toppling. As far as anyone knew, it was impossible to actually kill these guys. But they had a lot of (miniature) firepower, and Gale'd learned to respect Marines of all sizes. "What're you doing?"
The first Marine—who Gale could only assume was some kind of officer. If he wore any rank it was too tiny to see—glared at her, then waved a stumpy arm at the fortifications.
"I know that," Gale sighed. "But… Wash put you up to this, didn't she."
A teeny tiny noise in the affirmative wafted up from the little Marine.
Gale smirked. Even when Wash wasn't around, the battleship was looking out for her. Although what felt like an ammo cache stuffed into her left bra cup was sort of overkill. "Guys?"
The marines looked over with mute acknowledgement.
"My tits are not an ammo dump."
She'd never seen anyone look quite so crestfallen. The officer waved his tiny little arms, and a handful of grunts slung their squished little Garands and trudged up her tummy to retrieve their cached munitions. Gale tried not to laugh as two of them lifted up her shirt while the rest ducked under the thin gray fabric and pried crates of itty-bitty 30-06, pineapple grenades, and mortar rounds the size of thumb tacks out of her bra. It ticked something fierce, but… at the same time it was something she could get used to.
They were Wash's Marines after all. According to Colonel Solette, faeries were an extension of the shipgirl's body, like an immune system. The battleship was essentially feeling her up.
It might not make total medical sense, but Gale was too happy to really care. "Guys?"
The Marines halted their efforts and pivoted their squished little faces towards her.
"You, uh…" Gale blushed. "Are gonna give Wash a full report, right?"
The officer nodded.
"Good." Gale giggled, and let Wash's Marines finish their work while trying very hard not to think of all the interesting things they could be used for. They'd almost finished when a loud growl from her stomach almost sent the flagpole tumbling down, luckily one of the quicker Marines managed to retrieve it instants before the tiny fabric would've touched her skin.
"Nice save."
The Marine saluted, and his comrades quickly folded up the flag and stowed it with the rest of their gear in a little pile on the bedside table.
"You guys hungry?" Gale idly drummed her fingers against her belly. She might have stuffed herself on Christmas, but she could smell her mother's trademark cinnamon rolls from her bed. And bacon. And sausage. And warm pancakes. And Wash. All things which made her mouth water—although in the case of Wash, for totally different reasons.
The Marines stared back at her with inscrutable little faces.
Gale blinked. "Do you guys even eat?"
Another round of quiet stares.
"Well…" Gale coughed, and pulled herself to her feet. "I do."
After a moment to police a few flyaway hairs and make sure her bra was on straight—Wash wasn't the only one who'd gotten some close torpedo-bulge inspection last night—she grabbed a mostly-empty box of Lego. She wadded a folded-up blanket into the bottom to give them some padding. "Hop in, I'll take you to Wash."
The Marines silently discussed among themselves, then allowed Gale to pluck each up by his tiny webbing and place him gently in the box. It was just shallow enough for them to peek over, and by the time she had them all in they'd already setup a few machine guns. It seemed unnecessary, but she couldn't fault their devotion to duty.
And it was really damn cute.
Gale smirked, tucked the box under her arm, and set course for breakfast at flank speed. The smell of fresh, home cooked food was so overpowering Gale almost didn't notice Wash sitting happily in front of a mountain of pancakes the size of her own sizable chest. Almost.
"Hey Wash," Gale smiled a sleepy, blissful simle at the battleship. "Found something of yours."
Wash smiled back, and dipped that queenly face of hers in polite recognition. "I hope they kept you safe."
Gale nodded, and giggled as the Marines dismounted and started hauling a pancake towards their box. It took a solid dozen of them working together, Mama Gale considered any pancake less than a foot in diameter to be basically communist. And that's before she stuffed them with chocolate chips and blueberries.
"You guys need help?" Gale smirked and helped herself to a few.
The Marine officer glared at her, then tore a chunk off the pancake with his tiny K-BAR and scarfed it down defiantly.
"Whatever you say," the sailor held her hands up in mock surrender.
"Sarah."
Gale's heart leaped. She still hadn't quite gotten used to Wash calling her by her first name. It was really nice though. Wash's voice wasn't quiet, but the smooth way her words flowed was like watching glassblowers. Elegant and smooth, but burning with a brilliant heat all the same. "E-eh?"
Wash didn't say anything. She just leaned over and snuggled against the sailor's shoulder.
It would've been a picture-perfect moment, one Gale wouldn't have minded living the rest of her life in. So, naturally, her mother had to run it.
"You two are so cute together!" Gale's mother shoved a smartphone under their noses and snapped off a flurry of photographs.
"MA!"
Wash just smirked.
"You know, she insisted on helping make dinner," said Gale's mother. "Wouldn't take no for an answer."
"Uh…" Gale blushed. She was amazed someone had beaten down her mother's need to be the perfect host. Even battleships quivered in fear of a Southern mother's hospitality. But she knew, she just knew something embarrassing was coming.
"Said she wanted practice," said Gale's mother.
Wash nodded.
"For when you're knocked up with my grandkids."
Wash smirked, and ducked down to nuzzle Gale's belly with her nose.
"MAAAA!" Gale's blush reached levels never before thought possible. Her mother just howled with laughter, and even Wash's normally serene visage was split with a hearty giggle. Good lord, they'd learned to work together. "I hate all of you," mumbled the sailor.
"You too, dear," Gale's mother kissed the sailor's head and shoved a wad of apple-smoked bacon in her mouth. "Now eat up! Both of you."
The marines glanced up.
"You too, dearies."
The marines nodded, and went back to slowly nibbling the pancake away.
—|—|—
On a normal day, working aboard the floating museum that was the USS Iowa was a dream given form. She was an old ship—one of the oldest still around, now that Big T'd shown up—but she's aged with the grace of a grand old lady. Her lines were still long and sleek, her hull looked lighting-fast even sitting at anchor, and her compartments didn't show a hint of her age.
They were cramped, of course. And dingy. And often poorly lit. And had a pungent smell of salt, fuel oil, and sweat. But they didn't show a hint of the decades Iowa'd spent napping in the LA sun. Even deep in her bilges, there wasn't a spec of rust on her ancient steel, nor a drop of corrosion or degradation in the miles of wire spun though her hull like a corset's boning.
She was a grand old lady, but she could've been half her age. She looked just as good as the day she first slipped into mothballs. Better, if some of the older docents were telling the truth.
Even now, with most of her machinery and electronics given to her little sisters, she was beautiful. And she always found ways to give just a little bit more. Caches of crucial repair parts—fuses that hadn't been built in half a century, fire-control gearing from the age of the mechanical computer, even boiler parts for her eight mighty fireboxes—that'd slipped though the cracks of decades of bureaucracy kept cropping up in forgotten storerooms just when they were needed most.
Documents pointing to whole warehouses of shells, unmixed powder, and barrel liners were found tucked away in the backs of office drawers and wedged between desks. And every so often, when the sun had just gone down, you might catch a glimpse of a woman standing on the fantail, looking wistfully at the twilight glow.
Jake Ryan knew it was Iowa herself. No human woman was that tall or that… built. But he never saw her for more than an instant, and never from closer than a few hundred feet away. Iowa was still bound to her hull, but she was still fighting in spirit.
Of course, things on the Big Stick weren't always great. Ever since the rally last year, he'd started noticing hats cropping up in the weirdest of places.
At first, he assumed it'd just been leftovers from the rally. Someone must've brought a case of the simple red caps to hand out, and a gust of wind or something had blown a few away or something. Simple.
And then he found one perched jauntily on the captain's chair for three days in a row.
And then, Iowa had apparently decided to start trolling him like the mischievous little imp she was. Every day there'd be another hat sitting happily in some hard-to-reach but easy-to-see place.
And Ryan, as the youngest and spriest volunteer aboard, was always the one who had to go fetch them. Which would be fine, except he wasn't a huge fan of heights.
And Iowa had decided today's hat would be perched at the very top of her mast, right where one of her radars had been before it'd been donated to Missouri.
"Iowa," Ryan huffed, and stared up—and up. And up. And uuuuup—at the battleship. "Why you do this?"
The quiet sound of water lapping against the battlewagon's slender hull was his response. Ryan swore it sounded like mocking laughter.
Omake by Nicholas
"Hello, folks! Welcome to the battleship Iowa. Is this your first time visiting? Well then, thanks for coming to see us."
Jake Ryan listened with only half an ear to his fellow volunteer welcoming new guests onto the ship. He finally got that last damn hat down and collapsed exhausted on a bench by the quarterdeck. At least the canopy gave him some shade, even if he had to listen to whomever was on quarterdeck watch welcome all the guests to the ship.
"Yeah, he's just a little tired; we've got a very dedicated group of volunteers on this ship always hard at work to make your visit enjoyable, but even they need some rest once in a while."
Jake snorted in amusement and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Make their visit enjoyable—yeah right. Making their visit hat-free was more like it.
"You're going to be on a self-guided tour. Just follow the yellow arrows and they'll take you all around the ship. Watch your head and watch your step, especially when going through the hatches and on the ladders. The ship does like to reach out and trip people sometimes; we think she finds it funny."
The idea that Iowa herself thought it funny to trip people had gained a lot of traction as of late, especially as the people falling were the least in danger of permanent damage. A ninety-year-old veteran with a wobbly gait and bad hip could make his way through the whole tour—up six flights of stairs and down six flights of stairs—no problem, but a pair of twenty-year-olds would inevitably trip on something and go sprawling. At first some made the argument that it was because the older guest, more aware of the danger, would be more careful than the younger. No one made that argument anymore.
"If you have a camera, take all the pictures you want. We have a little intro video here to tell you a bit about who we are and why we're so awesome, and enjoy!"
The volunteer manning quarterdeck sat back down with a huff. "Sorry," he said, as though he had to apologize for interrupting Jake so he could do his job. "You were saying?"
"Yeah, it was all the way up on Spot One," Jake picked his story up right where he left off. Those damned hats popped up a lot of places, but for one to suddenly appear on the O-12 level was a bit much.
The other volunteer shook his head. He may have been newish to the ship, but he was throwing himself in as much as he could. "That's all the way up there, isn't it?" he asked, leaning out from the awning to look up at the highest point on the ship. Jake got a glimpse of the volunteer's name badge as he did so. How did someone with a first name as simple as Nick get a last name that was so unpronounceable? "How did you get it down from there?"
"I didn't, thankfully. I'm one of Gunny's Junior Jarheads; there's no way they'd let me up that high." Nick nodded. One of the tour leads, a retired gunnery sergeant, helped run a junior Marine ROTC at the local high school, and many of the cadets also volunteered on the ship. But no matter how trusted Jake was, there was no anyone would let a high schooler climb twelve stories above the main deck to retrieve a hat. "Ops took care of it. They're the main ones on hat patrol—the hard to reach ones, anyway."
"Seems like that has become almost the only thing they do," Nick replied. "It's not like the ship seems to need much upkeep."
"You've noticed that too?"
Nick pointed to the salmon-colored building just two berths away from Iowa's bow, on the other side of the fireboat station. "I used to volunteer at the L.A. Maritime Museum, and I watched from that dock as they towed Iowa into the harbor. I was one of the first tourists to come on board; I remember how it looked then. So much of this deck was rotted that much of the tour route was covered in plywood, and now it's all brand-new teak? That and the curator always seems to be finding documents everywhere; ship's plans here, an overlooked warehouse there. Either this museum has unlimited funding and volunteers, or something weird is going on."
Jake blinked. It was only Nick's fifth day on the ship and he just joined two weeks ago; he watched it come into the harbor years ago? "You were here when it first arrived? Why did you wait until now to join up?"
"I grew up here, but went to college in Virginia. After I got my masters the wife and I decided to move back here and I started volunteering." The other volunteer shrugged, then continued, "But stop changing the subject; just what is going on on this ship?"
Jake hesitated; dare he share his suspicions? "You know those 'spirits' in the news lately," he said cautiously, "the ones that are apparently ships manifesting as women?"
Nick nodded. "You think Iowa is manifesting as well?"
Jake hesitated again. "You ever see a woman just hanging around? Tall, well built—"
"Sunglasses and big blond hair?" Nick smiled at the look on Jake's face. "Yeah, I've seen her around. The first time, I was sweeping the ship at the end of the day and I thought she was a guest still on board. Wound up chasing her around the entire ship, but finally gave up when I saw a painting of her and figured it was Iowa's spirit."
Now Jake really sputtered. "A painting?! What painting?"
"You know that painting in the damage control berthing? The one that says 'Repairing and Daring'?"
"R-Division? Yeah, but that's a big flag."
"But there's a picture next to it, of what it looked like before we had to paint the flag over it. Sure below the waist is a mermaid, but everything else was a spitting image."
Jake blinked and then slowly started shaking his head. "I'll be darned, it was here all along…"
"Excuse me!" Nick and Jake looked up and turned to the guest who had called to them. "Did someone lose their hat?"
Both volunteers followed the guest's pointed finger, and saw the bright red hat sitting jauntily atop Mount 51. As one, the two muttered in frustration, "Iowa."
As Jake stood up and as Nick picked up the radio, the sound of the ship straining at the ropes tying her to the dock was Iowa's only reply.