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The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Shipgirl Short Stories: Taffy Three Returns: Sammy's Happy Time!
By Fred Herriot
I Hit The Whale (1944), by RADM Robert W. Copeland USNR
Based on characters and situations from The Seventh Carrier, created by Peter Albano; Katekyō Hitman Reborn, created by Amano Akira; Due South, created by Paul Haggis; Kantai Collection, created by Kadokawa Games; Sister Princess, created by Kimino Sakurako with Tenhiro Naoto; Sweet Valley High, created by Francine Pascal; Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; The West Wing, created by Allan Sorkin; War of the Worlds, created by Greg Strangis (based on The War of the Worlds, created by H.G. Wells); Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, created by Takahashi Rumiko; normalman, created by Jim Valentino; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon; and Stargate SG-1, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner.
Also including characters and situations from Urusei Yatsura — The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot.
At the third Sol-Mars libration point (opposite the Sun from Mars itself), the final Monday of October in 2012, two hours before supper UTC (Washington time: Noon; Sunnydale time: An hour after breakfast; Tōkyō time: The final Tuesday, an hour after midnight)...
"Ach! So YOU'RE the one our Japanische Kameraden speak of with such admiration...!"
Hearing that voice with its prim Prussian tones, Brooke Roberts — who was busy admiring herself in her service dress blues in front of a vanity mirror, her spray of four campaign medals and three unit ribbons on her chest — awked before she turned...
...then she gaped in awe on seeing the living personification of the world's most famous warship standing there, she in her dark dress blue formal uniform with a small salad bowl of medals and decorations over her heart. "Captain von Bismarck!"
Luisa von Bismarck-Schönhausen smiled as she returned the reborn American frigate's salute with her own. "Guten tag, Frau Korvettenkapitän Roberts," the adopted native of her namesake's hometown in modern day Saxony-Anhalt affirmed with a polite nod of her head before she gave her current companions an amused look. All of them had the auras of Great War combat ships as Brooke could see it through her special "shipgirl sight" empathic power; one of the two obvious capital ships accompanying the reborn KMS Bismarck was a Deutschland-class pre-dreadnought while another was a Derfflinger-class battlecruiser...or "fast battleship" as they were politely referred to these days. "As I told you all, Tante Anna, Tante Anastasia, give the Americans time to prepare themselves and their production capacity will simply overwhelm anyone who dares face them down."
"Which our Japanische Kameraden grossly underestimated," the reborn battlecruiser said with a chuckle as she came over to warmly grip the hand of the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors. "Guten tag, Frau Korvettenkapitän. I was Seiner Majestät Schiff Lützow, second of my class as you can no doubt 'see'. Alexandra Anastasia von Lützow at your service; I go by Stasi."
"Ah...er...wouldn't be really proper, Captain," the adopted San Franciscan admitted as the others who had accompanied Luisa to this private meeting room aboard the megaopolis-sized space construction yard built by their hosts' ancestral race on the planet Sagussa many millennia before came up to shake her hand and introduce themselves. "You went down at Jutland, right?!" she then asked before perking. "Oh, damn! Sorry about that! Forgot you folks call that fight a different name!"
"Ja, we did," the reborn SMS Pommern — now Clara Anna von Greifen; as her namesake territory was mostly in Poland now, she also had a local name (Klarysa Anna z Gryfici) and was one of the several former warships of the Kaiserliche Marine to publicly consider switching service to the Marynarka Wojenna, partially out of flat-out disgust by words and actions of the government in Berlin concerning the Fatherland's reborn schiffsmädchen — said as she shook the younger-looking woman's hand. "Heard you were one of those whose crew were saved by one of the Drachentöter our Kanadische friends built."
"Chennalton," Brooke nearly gushed the name. "Her sister Argo was there for Captain von Bismarck's crew."
"That was the model our Australische und Neuseeländische Kameraden built their later-generation warships on, Tante," Luisa added. "The 'Ocean-class' as they call them there. Seven for the Commonwealth and three for the Realm."
The veterans of the great slug fest of battleships in the late spring of 1916 off the coast of Denmark nodded in approval. "Decent design even if she didn't have the sheer armour our generation of dragon killers possessed," the former flagship of the First Scouting Group under then-Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper mused; as she was named after a living person, Anastasia wasn't named in tribute to either her admiral or her then-captain. "Is it true that Raumschiffe versions of them are being built?"
"I hope so!" Brooke protested. "It's horrible that they had to sail all alone like that all the time! No escorts at all...!"
The other Jutland veterans nodded. "Ja, that's true...but given those sea monsters they hunted..." Here, the reborn cruiser SMS Frauenlob now known as Pernille Hoffmann winced as she recalled the horrors her crew had faced that day BEYOND the guns of the Grand Fleet. "I doubt even someone with YOUR endurance could withstand something like that, young Brooke!"
"Have you gone to where Frau Freiin Chennalton is based to see her?" Rebekka Feldmann, the reborn SMS Rostock, asked.
Before Brooke could answer, an intercom whistled. "Thoughtmistress-prime Brooke Roberts, please report to Reception Hall 71 for commencement ceremonies. Thoughtmistress-prime Brooke Roberts, please report to Reception Hall 71..."
That made the shipgirls in the small lounge set aside for the fifty-fifth of the John C. Butler-class destroyer escorts/frigates perk. "Ach! It's time, young Brooke!" Luisa said as she offered her arm to the younger-looking girl. "Your fans await."
The azure-haired American blinked even if she slipped her arm around that of the battleship's. "I've got FANS...?!"
Minutes later...
"Wow...!"
"She looks beautiful, Brooke," Josiah Bartlet declared as the assembled mass of onlookers cheered.
"Wow...!"
"Little Scrapper's still taking it in, Uncle Jed," Faith Lehane noted from nearby; the Scooby Gang had all gladly ditched school to come up to the Main Dockyard to see the launch of FF(S)-413, United States Starship Samuel B. Roberts.
"Wow...!"
"Oi, Yoiko! You think your sister would accept Brooke as a battleship now?!" Yvonne Swanson asked with a smile.
"Wow...!"
"If my sister has ANY decent sense of honour in her, she would do that under ALL circumstances, Yvonne-san," Itō Yoiko — whose dark blue dress uniform seemed simply prosaic in comparison to the other former Japanese shipgirls by the simple LACK of service medals and decorations over her heart; the seventh carrier of Operation Z only had the Great East Asia War Medal given she was technically an active warship of the Imperial Navy at the time that conflict happened — coolly replied.
"Wow...!"
"Oi! Brooke! C'mon! Get your mind back in gear, huh?" Xander Harris then called out. Like the other metahuman Yizibajohei present, he was in the traditional sleeved form of battledress which the "new" generation adopted as more formal wear. As she already wore the sleeved model as her standard battlesuit, Coya Gutierrez had a beautiful hooded cape over her shoulders which flowed to her knees, such in the colours of the Inca Empire; capes were the mark of royalty among nobles of that world.
Yelping — thus earning her a chorus of amused laughter from the crowd — the adopted San Franciscan then shook her head before she chuckled, scratching her temple; being in her dress blues, she was allowed modified grooming standards and let her azure locks flow loose past her collars to mid-back. "S-s-sorry about that, everyone..." she then apologized.
Applause then filled the crowd before a woman in a grey-lined white jumpsuit called out, "Poem!"
At Tariko Katabarbe's prompting — all her siblings were present...including Hirosaki Chikage since it was past the end of classes at Hogwarts now — many of the people seated near the Trickster of the Great Show of Life, Tuyuki ("Coyote"), began chanting that same word. While some of those present blinked in confusion, Brooke looked their way before she perked as she realized what the reality warper who had launched the second Metahuman Age was aiming for. Clearing her throat, she then stepped up to the lectern, making people fall quiet as the microphone there slightly echoed her moves. A deep breath later, Brooke gazed on her commander-in-chief, who nodded in encouragement before she faced the small crowd seated ahead of the forcefield-blocked portal opening into one of the impossibly vast construction chambers within this fifty-kilometre wide and ten kilometre thick structure, where the just-completed FF(S)-413 now floated perpendicularly to the chamber's side bulkhead.
"At the request of Admiral Katabarbe, a simple poem to start this off," she began...
I hit the whale, that much is true
But I pray, my Lord, what could I do?
My ship was on a mission bound
When the royal whale did choose to sound.
My ship, it never had a chance;
Your whale came rushing like a lance,
Straight up at us from depths below,
We were attacked by an unseen foe.
The whale we hit, death was his fate;
But not in malice, rage or hate.
No other course was left to me
So self defence is now my plea.
As people gaped in awe at such simple yet beautiful verse, the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors chuckled. "When I crossed the Equator for the first time back in '44, my crew did as many of our crews from the Western nations have always done and paid tribute to King Neptune for crossing into his domain. Most of my guys were reservists, never having gone to sea before. That made them 'pollywogs' who've never crossed that particular line of latitude in their service at sea. My captain was one of those 'pollywogs'. And while it wasn't seen as mandatory to do something like that, Captain Copeland went through it as way of showing he belonged among the 'shellbacks' — the experienced sailors who HAD crossed the line before — and wrote that poem in defence of what happened when I hit that poor whale after I was formally commissioned earlier that year."
She then gazed at Tariko. "Is that what you were aiming for, Admiral?"
The boy-turned-girl's eyes twinkled in amusement as her other-self/twin brother Moroboshi Ataru — who wore a formal kimono as he was not properly Gifted — patted her shoulder. "So since we've all got things to do and I'm sure Snyder the Troll is going to be his jerk self once my admirals get back on Earth to go back to school, let's get this done," Brooke said.
Turning around, she grasped the bottle of peach brandy — a Sagussan drink which was dry and quite harsh to the tongue, she knew, having not tried it yet — hanging from a rope tied to the deckhead a couple metres above. "In the name of the people of the United States of America, I hereby christen thee United States Starship Samuel B. Roberts," she formally declared, putting a little power into her voice so everyone could hear. "May all the gods of Creation bless thee and all who sail within thee!"
The bottle was swung out through the forcefield to smash into the bow of the ten-to-one scale modified replica of the fifty-fifth of the John C. Butler-class destroyer escorts, the proud numbers 413 pained in larger peacetime standard just back from the forward edge of the ship on either flank. As that happened, drapes fell from the sides of the stubby funnel/particle intake vent amidships to display the badge of said ship, replicating Brooke's badge on her battlesuit given to her after her salvage/Gifting days before; such was being projected on screens to either side of the great starship's bow for the crowd to see. Even more, a drape over the rounded stern was pulled up to reveal her name in black peacetime lettering bracketed between the smaller hull numbers under the aft flanks of the quarterdeck which now served as her flying platform for two large shuttlecraft known in the American military as the CV-94 Star Flare, such available for personnel transport as well as scouting and light attack missions whenever required. Much to Brooke's personal relief as well — given she lost nearly HALF of her crew that day in late 1944 off Samar — the original design's small boats were replaced with enclosed bays on the sides of the superstructure housing a dozen shuttlecraft designated the UV-96 Space Dhow, which could be used for crew evacuation as well as ship's maintenance duties; there were also nearly a hundred two-man "worker bee" craft similar to what was seen in the first Star Trek film for detailed maintenance work.
As tractor arrays moved to swing the just-christened Roberts around to allow her port side to nudge against the bulkhead of the construction and let people come aboard via a physical gangway, people cheered...
Aboard the Roberts, an hour later...
"Roberts, this is Laffey. Accepting switch of call-sign of 'Navy One'. I relieve you, Commander."
"Laffey, this is Roberts. Acknowledge switch of call-sign to 'Navy One'. I stand relieved, Commander."
"Safe maiden flight, Brooke."
"Thanks, Brenda!"
As the starship version of the seventh of the Benson-class fleet destroyers peeled away to starboard from the newly-launched star frigate, the template of said starship sighed as she sat back in her chair, having switched back to her white-and-blue fighting battlesuit...which still had her rank of lieutenant commander visible on its collars; as she wasn't named after a member of the armed services which only used the pin-on insignia, the black fields were crossed with gold stripes in lieu of a simple gold oak leaf. "So how soon will we get Gamby's new ship out of the docks so we can do joint manoeuvres, Chief?"
The Avalonian-American chief engineer — known among her kind by the term "dockmistress-prime" — who had been in charge of Roberts' construction (as well as in charge of the whole project to build all the members of her class, including the two hundred-and-ten ships who had been cancelled mostly before they were even laid down; said vessels would be distributed to TWENTY-ONE other nations to help flesh out their own "fleets" of shipgirls) gazed on her dataPADD. "According to the Dockmistress-prime in charge of Casablanca-class construction, USS Gambier Bay — as well as the others of your old task unit, plus the Makassar Strait now — will be ready by mid-month, Shipmistress," she answered, addressing the reborn destroyer escort by the traditional Sagussan title for the commander of a starship. "However, given the scarcity of potential opponents who make use of small fighter and attack aircraft from dedicated aerospace mother ships — only the Urusians and the Goa'uld do something like that due to the distance between solar systems and the impractical nature of such combat in deep space unless you're close to a planetary body — the Pentagon has ordered that efforts are more concentrated to other types of warships."
"Lar'beke...!"
That was a giddy Chloe Zitzewitz; Brooke's old task unit mate was currently at the helm controls learning how to fly such a vessel in three dimensions as scant few American shipgirls had crews who had served on the dirigibles and blimps of the United States Navy, that having been quite the service specialty during World War Two. She was being guided in how to manipulate the two wheels — one for horizontal movements left-and-right, the other handling vertical movements up-and-down — while keeping a watch on the control board before her revealing the ship's orientation vis-à-vis surrounding space. While the others of the Scooby Gang were on the bridge save Rupert Giles — more studious ones like Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay taking the time to catch up on homework while their friends were busying themselves learning about all the stations located on the ninety foot-wide pilotage platform; fortunately, special acoustic transmitters were inserted all over to allow a person's voice to carry to the other side of such a huge space easily — the remainder of Roberts' "plank owners" were Avalonian-American civilians; not a single reservist from the Naval Operations Support Centres in Sacramento, Alameda or San Jose (selected as all were close to Brooke's adopted hometown of San Francisco) had yet to report aboard. Still, most of those who were putting FF(S)-413 through her paces were veterans of the "Army of Lum", the defence forces of the Union of Phentax Two which had been wiped out to a ship months before in the Mother of All Fight Scenes against the Oni warlord's daughter's so-called "most faithful" when the Avalonians as a race had been liberated from slavery, so there were no worries about "space cadets" screwing things up.
Thanking the Fates that she had been made to binge-watch all the Star Wars and Star Trek movies during the nights when she wasn't busy on the streets helping her admirals keep the spiritual peace over Sunnydale, Brooke sighed. "Okay, any of my own sisters — even the ones adopted out to all our allies — on their starships so we can do some joint manoeuvres?"
The older woman tapped controls. "Quite the few, in fact, Shipmistress," she noted.
"Shipmistress!" the bioroid manning the main communications station called out. "Incoming signal!"
"Who?!" Brooke asked.
"USCGC Douglas A. Munro."
That made the adopted San Franciscan perk. "Munro?! Oh, sweet! She was in...!"
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"'United States COAST GUARD CUTTER'?!" both Brooke and Chloe exclaimed, wide-eyed...
An hour later, near Mars...
"Damn...! I bet when the Commandant of the Guard learned you were back...!"
"He was seen doing an actual happy dance in the E-Ring," Alanna Munro finished for her older sister; the only ship named after the Coast Guard's singular Medal of Honour winner was the sixty-fourth of their overall class. "Especially since my starship-self's armament doesn't contain 'hot' items like missiles that can be fitted with antimatter warheads; no way were CNO or the commander of the SGC going to budge on that one." As Brooke Roberts nodded — being briefed on the people who were taking the fight to the Goa'uld in a way the "children of the gods" did not expect from the descendants of their former slaves, she couldn't wait for a chance to participate in off-world missions — the tomboyish brunette adopted of Vancouver in British Columbia (birthplace of her namesake SM1 Douglas Munro), Cle Elum in the middle of Washington (where he lived after migrating from Canada) and Houston in Texas (where she was built) added, "Of course, pure Coastie shipgirls have been coming back — E set that up at Cape May about a month after Admiral Wakefield brought her back to duty — and there's talk that the old four-pipers who got assigned to state naval militias might get a chance to go active in the Guard if the governors let them go." As both shipgirls shared a knowing smirk — no way in HELL would a governor of one of the several states or commonwealths of the Union want to let THAT type of asset out of their administrative hands! — Alanna sipped some of the "black gang" coffee her host's engineers provided for her when USS Samuel B. Roberts made her rendezvous with USCGC Douglas A. Munro over the red planet. Thinking on the starship prefix assigned to Munro, Brooke tried not to laugh, patting her shoulder at getting a fleet update for the Navy and Coast Guard as soon as she met Yvonne Swanson. Despite there being a surface ship with the same general name (without the middle initial) — a Hamilton-class high endurance cutter with hull number WHEC-724 based at Coast Guard Base Kodiak on the island of the same name off the Alaskan coast — the Commandant hadn't ordained a switch of ship prefix for Coast Guard starships, preferring the traditional "cutter" name for active vessels of the service. Atop that, since she was due to decommission soon — Sri Lanka wanted to put in a bid for her purchase — the confusion wouldn't be SO bad.
"One of our Canadian sisters should be here in a bit," Alanna noted, getting her mind back to the here-and-now, she gazing in the general direction of Earth. Both shipgirls were on the exposed port wing of the bridge; to allow them to talk normally, a protective atmosphere had been placed over the weather decks, which allowed members of the Scooby Gang and those crew off duty to get "fresh" air outside and view both the red planet and the white-red-blue starship now hovering off Roberts' port side at a distance of five miles, Munro's hull number at the bow with her service name just under the bridge, both in big black print.
"You've been briefed on the roenor'beke, haven't you?" the adopted Washingtonian/British Columbian then asked.
"Yeah! Can't believe that whole War of the Worlds thing H.G. Wells wrote all those years ago turned out to be REAL in the '50s; they had to get Major — excuse me, General — Raeburn and her pals together to put a stop to it," the adopted San Franciscan breathed out. "Why? Don't tell me there's a colony of the damned things living here on Mars? I thought they lived out in the Crab Nebula!" Here, she indicated that particular dead solar remnant in the constellation of Taurus, which was visible quite well to the naked eye from their position as they were orbiting well below the equator of Earth's nearest interplanetary neighbour.
"Matter of fact, there is, in underground cities and defence bases," Alanna warned, making Brooke's eyes widen. "Turns out that the Mor-Tax — that's what those things call themselves — came into the system just as the lar'beke were settling down on Earth." As her host snorted, the tomboyish frigate pointed towards the massif of Olympus Mons well above the starships' plane of orbit. "They couldn't tolerate Earth's atmosphere and didn't have Anquietas tech backing them up, so they moved here instead, building underground since average surface temperature is too cold for them to take. So there they stayed and lived until they noted that Earth's technology was on a rocket climb to the atmosphere back in the '40s thanks to the war before making their move."
"And they got their asses kicked."
"And they got their asses kicked..."
A flash of energy made both girls look aft to see another starship appear, it decelerating from warp speed quite smartly with the use of manoeuvring thrusters put into the bow. Another Butler-class as apparent by the two twin 50 inch/38 calibre Mark 12S naval rifles in Mark 38S mounts whose surface ship equivalents first appeared in the wartime Allen M. Sumner-class destroyers then slid in to position herself to the port quarter of Munro, her pearl grey-over-blue hull with the red maple leaf on the funnel marking her as one of the twenty-two cancelled ships of their class adopted by America's northern neighbour. "Kingston," Alanna warned on seeing the black 453 written under the bridge structure in the European style also adopted by Canada.
"Came back because the folks at that naval reserve unit in that town tried to get the one Flower-class girl who was kinda-sorta named after that town to come back and join the SWR...and she wound up coming extra," Brooke affirmed with a nod.
«Permission to come aboard?» then echoed in both shipgirls' heads.
"C'mon over, Phoebe!" Alanna called back verbally.
The flash of a PAA going off produced a woman their age in a red jumpsuit with gold belt and silver boots; her hull number on her upper thighs was actually in silver in lieu of the typical black for Canadian shipgirls to provide a better contrast to the dark crimson of her pant legs. Possessing long pony-tailed grey hair and pale amethyst eyes, she only had the one thick stripe of an acting sub-lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy; since she had not been built, the unnamed DE-427 now seen on the World of the Forge as the Watchful Fortress Maiden of the Lake, Tener'besu ("Kingston"), was directly commissioned into the service at the lowest level for one to bear the Queen's Commission while she apprenticed under both officer and senior non-commissioned members of her "host" naval reserve division HMCS Cataraqui, located near the Royal Military College of Canada on the east side of the river of the same name from the downtown section of Phoebe Alger-Howland's namesake city.
"Hey, Phoebe!" Alanna said as she and Brooke returned the newcomer's salute. "Out taking the cadets for a space cruise?"
The adopted Ontarian/Texan — who would have been built where Brooke had been at the Consolidated Steel shipyards in Orange on the Sabine River which formed part of the border with Louisiana — chuckled. "Isn't that simple," she said with a warning.
Her hosts both blinked in confusion...
The wardroom of HMCS Kingston, minutes later...
"So the roenor'beke actually tried to infiltrate the freshman class at RMC, Commissioner?" Chloe Zitzewitz demanded.
"We lost two, Captain," the man known to North Americans as a whole by the quite unnerving sobriquet Hunter of the Mi'kmaq breathed out as he sat back in the chair used by the frigate's executive officer while the members of the Scooby Gang looked over pictures and dataPADDs which had been brought to this meeting by a scowling team of both Specialized Warfare Regiment and Royal Canadian Mounted Police "P" Division — the latter was a new formation established in 2003 which absorbed the Force's non-magical metahumans under one field commander with national responsibilities — personnel, all of whom now looked ready to do some serious rape and pillaging in the eyes of the Hellmouth veterans. "Of course, our friends in 'W' Division..."
"Whom your personally trained, Commissioner," his division staff-sergeant major reminded him.
"Yes, Benton, whom I personally trained," Martin Larsden breathed out as he gazed with fond amusement at SSM Benton Fraser, who returned that with a nonplussed look. "Well, they were happy to remove the evidence of alien involvement from being released willy-nilly to the press plus welcome the relatives into the 'Fidelius club' after I told them what happened..."
"All because of the umale around us, you mean?" Buffy Summers noted.
"Indeed so, Miss Summers," the native of Miramichi on the eastern shore of New Brunswick who was the Force's representative in the War Hawks — then ranked a staff sergeant in the Canadian Army's in-house military police corps — affirmed with an annoyed sigh. "Much that it seems our 'neighbours' in the Galactic Federation planet-states have become stupidly dependent on Niphentaxian social observations of our society to get choice intelligence on the goings-on across Earth — which they should have noticed by NOW has been cut off since early June our time! — trying to prevent too much of an alarm concerning the Mor-Tax of all the potential troublemakers who could cause issues with normal people is still the order of the day."
"Why would the roenor'beke try to raise issues now, Commissioner?" Willow Rosenberg asked.
"Sadly, the normal multi-department task group assigned to investigate these things couldn't find the nest where those two particular specimens came from, Miss Rosenberg," the man who had been literally blessed by the Great Old One known to Mi'kmaq myth as their own creator god Glooscap to be the ultimate hunter of both animals and men explained. "They're now teaming with auxiliary civilian investigators attached to 'P' Division — Avalonian-Canadians who have access to their former masters' scanning equipment — to scour everything within an eighty kilometre radius of the College itself."
"Recruiting in military forces from nations who have or had a coastline in the past is increasing quite exponentially because of the Liberation freeing many more of our bioroid friends to put on a uniform to protect Earth," Tara Maclay mused, nodding in understanding. "Since knowledge of these starships is getting out even while still censored from the general public, many normal Terrans who could be guaranteed to keep their mouths shut from the trash media are joining up to serve."
Here, the Tailor of Pure Chaos looked around to see several uniformed sailors aboard Kingston she sensed weren't Avalonians — all reservists from Cataraqui and her newly-formed sister naval reserve divisions located in Trenton, Cornwall and Peterborough in southeastern Ontario, HMC Ships Deseronto, Loyalist and Otonabee respectively — sporting the new Starship Flight Crew badges on their naval combat dress jackets. As many of them nodded or smiled to acknowledge they had actually overheard the arch-mage sorceress' comment, Tara sighed. "If only Labour Thanksgiving could come a little sooner...!"
"Makes the fight scene more enjoyable when A-man finally shuts that mess in Tomobiki down, Tara," Faith Lehane noted.
"Yeah, true...!" the Alabamian noted.
"So what's the plan here, sir?" Brooke Roberts asked; she was seated to Phoebe Alger-Howland's right at the other end of the table, with Alanna Munro to the adopted Canadian shipgirl's left. "Are these things still controlled from Mars?"
"That's long been suspected, Commander," Larsden declared as he reached into his tactical jacket to draw out a folded sheet of paper which he handed to Fraser. As the former deputy liaison officer based at the consulate in Chicago in the wake of his father's tragic murder in 1994 handed said note to Brooke — due to his exposure of corrupt members of the service when the truth behind what befell his late father Robert Fraser (who was one of Larsden's last trainees from the early 1950s before he retired from full-time work), the Northwest Territorian wouldn't get his corporal stripes until his father's teacher reviewed the man's service record after his return to work full time in 2001 — the New Brunswicker added, "That's the mission my group here is going to investigate. Since our Niphentaxian 'friends' were so nice to scout out potential base locations on Mars when they began full-time observations of Terrans before the Great War, we'll strike at one to get into computer records, seize what we can, then destroy the base while letting Kingston's crew get the chance to exercise their weapons." As the navy personnel grinned in anticipation, he waved to the letter he brought up after meeting Major General George Hammond at Colorado Springs Air Force Station. "That, Commander Roberts, is yours and Commander Munro's authorization from General Hammond to bring your ships into the shore bombardment mission to trial your weapons. Of course, Miss Summers, if you and yours care to join us?"
"Hunting roenor'beke?" the Mighty Maid of the Mountains hummed. "Never did that before. Guys?"
The others shrugged. "New one to me," Xander Harris noted as he allowed one hand's full of ki claws to jut from his fingertips. "Well, since it appears to be a public fight scene, no sense being rude and refuse."
"Let's go party!" the Belle of the Wilderness whooped...
On Mars within the Valles Marineris, an hour later...
The ringing of materializer beams made the people within the large chamber — not just humans whose bodies had been taken over by the natives of Mor-Tax but actual natives of that planet who refused to "debase" themselves by taking a "skin" for themselves despite the dexterity having a human shell offered — spin about before a storm of energy fire ripped through them without mercy from the platoon's worth of dark-suited warriors armed with weapons far more advanced than any of the natives of the Crab Nebula could recognize. "INVADERS! KILL THEM!" one human-possessing alien screeched...
...before a dark-haired man in a brown skin-tight uniform showing off considerable muscles landed before him. "No...!"
"Oh, yeah!" the Wild Scavenger of the Plains teased back as ki exploded from his fingertips to produce a pair of energy shanks.
With three sweeps of both his arms, Xander Harris gutted the leech-like creature within said body before decapitating and dismembering same, then he ducked away as someone who was a little faster on the trigger tried to to shoot him in the head. Said idiot was snared by the Untameable One before she sent the fool flying at supersonic speeds into the rock ceiling of this place, the being literally being crushed into paste by Hayashi Kanami's throw. Meanwhile, Buffy Summers was sweeping through both human-form and natural-form aliens ahead of a section of "P" Division warriors in bodysuits, their C25 pulse-particle weapons thundering at full automatic to render their targets nothing more than showering mists of red-and-gold gore.
Lunging ahead of her sister Slayer with the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors acting as wingman, the Belle of the Wilderness flung herself into the legs of the platoon's worth of tripod walkers whose actions on Earth still gave people who experienced such events nightmares even now, decades after the original "war of the worlds" befell humanity as a whole. While Faith Lehane used her arms to rip away the lumbering devices legs and render them useless, Brooke Roberts sent energy blasts into the mushroom cap-shaped cockpits, killing the pilots who had been trying to activate such machines' weapons systems so they could help in repulsing this attack on their base. Meanwhile, Willow Rosenberg, Tara Maclay and Coya Gutierrez were using their magic to transfigure the atmosphere into something that would choke the enemy forces; all non-FISS fighters who came from the Kingston had, atop standard body-shielding forcefield generators attached to their belts, air-tight portable rebreathers on their faces to allow them to operate while their targets were suffocating on a noxious mixture of diluted sulphuric acid mixed with a nasty version of Orthocoronavirinae virus particles proven over previous years to be ESPECIALLY deadly to the would-be conquerors of Earth.
"LARSDEN!" one voice screeched in outrage. "YOU DARE THINK WE WOULD FORGIVE...?!"
A pistol shot from the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq silenced the blonde woman in the dark uniform once a fair-sized hole appeared in her upper chest, right where her real body's head would be. "'Friend' of yours, Commissioner?" April Mears — who had volunteered herself to be Martin Larsden's personal bodyguard when they came down here — calmly asked...
...before the transformed gynoid blinked as a three-fingered alien hand tried to punch out her eyes!
The native of Miramichi didn't even blink as he snap-drew a pistol and blew said attacker's head apart — that one was moving to burst free of its human shell after getting close enough to the Wild Beast of the Mountains so it could try to possess her — before April's well-aimed foot down THERE sent the rest of the creature flying into a handy stalactite, it splattering its remains over a just-activated tripod's cockpit. Before the pilots could see the danger in time, April then leapt into the air to throw herself right into the body of said walker, crumpling it with the ease a normal person could crush an empty can of soda. Also, the impact of said collision sent the machine falling perfectly to punch through a set of double doors leading into a side cavern.
Landing atop the destroyed tripod, April looked into said cavern to see a company's worth of Mor-Tax youth, many screeching in understandable fright on seeing the obvious metahuman now there. Before the human-form guardian could draw his own weapon and shoot back, Chloe Zitzewitz and Alanna Munro landed to either side of the former gynoid, their arms glowing brightly. April deftly ducked out of the way as the two shipgirls turned the cavern into a virtual crematorium with their energy blasts — augmented by the Skittish Jackrabbit's own Dying Will Flames, which could burn as easily as they could render any target calm — eliciting a symphony of agonized shrieks from the aliens as they were instantly incinerated.
"Damn!" the adopted Washingtonian known now on Yiziba as the Herald of the Revenue Service, Douglas A. Munro, declared with a visible wince on her face as her nostrils took in the heady stench of burning alien flesh. "Heard that some of the Japanese shipgirls actually LIKE eating jellyfish! How could they stand the stench of something like that?!"
"They're fishermen, Munro!" the reborn aircraft carrier noted before her special empathy — which registered to her as if she had put up all the aircraft from Composite Squadron 10, her on-board group of Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo planes and General Motors FM-2 Wildcat fighters, before getting into this place — warned her of attacks from behind.
Spinning around, the adopted Alaskan produced a sheer WALL of flame at the half-dozen natural-form Mor-Tax lunging at her. "MURDERERS!" one of them screeched as all three of its arms tried to snare the blonde woman's face.
Said creature was instantly vaporized — as were all its fellows — by the soul flame-empowered aircraft carrier. A voice then barked out from one computer station nestled against the wall of the main chamber, "All data retrieved, Commissioner!"
Hearing that from SSM Benton Fraser — who had been tasked to break into the aliens' computer networks using a specially-prepared mesonium crystal to draw out all the data which was stored there or could be linked from that station from elsewhere — Larsden relaxed himself as he slung his M1C Garand rifle. "NOW, LIEUTENANT!"
«Energizing, Commissioner!»
In showers of energy, the attacking force of Terrans, Avalonians and adopted Yizibajohei were pulled off the planet...
Aboard HMCS Kingston...
"Fire all weapons, Chief!"
"Aye-aye, ma'am!"
Instantly, the starboard side of the starship replica of the fifty-eighth of the John C. Butler-class destroyer escorts lit up as four 50 inch/38 calibre space naval rifles spat out twenty-five tonne shells towards the target over a hundred kilometres away, the weapons in both "A" and "Y" turrets warming up to the design limit of fifteen rounds per minute within seconds. At the same time, the primary weapons of both USS Samuel B. Roberts and USCGC Douglas A. Munro — both of whom had been floating close to the Canadian frigate while they waited for the away party from Kingston to get off the planet — also fired, the effectively civilian crew of the Navy starship quickly matching their more experienced Coast Guard counterparts in gusto as the square-kilometre patch of ground housing the target was turned into an effective charnel house of wrecked machinery and vehicles intermixed with and obliterated bodies which would immediately freeze in Mars' sub-zero autumn weather...
...hadn't one Mark 50S ADCAP missile fired from Roberts — whose launch had been authorized by Josiah Bartlet before the attack began — smashed down on the wrecked site, its antimatter warhead instantly going off to turn everything within a hundred kilometres of the impact point into a very LARGE and DEEP "bay" within the dry extent of the Valles Marineris...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
Carrying on the Taffy Three stories, this short occurs seventeen days prior to Boy Meets Girl Meets Metahuman.
Translation list (all German except when noted): Japanische Kameraden — Japanese comrades; Korvettenkapitän — Corvette Captain, equal to a lieutenant commander in English-speaking navies; Tante — Aunt; Marynarka Wojenna — War Navy (Polish); Schiffsmädchen — Ship maidens/shipgirls; Drachentöter — Dragon Slayers; Kanadische — Canadian; Australische und Neuseeländische Kameraden — Australian and New Zelander comrades; Raumschiffe — Starships; FF(S) — Space frigate (United States Navy hull classification code); CV — Cargo V/STOL aircraft (United States tri-service aircraft designation); UV — Utility V/STOL aircraft (United States tri-service aircraft designation); CNO — Chief of Naval Operations, senior officer of the United States Navy (English abbreviation); SM1 — Signalman First Class (United States Navy/Coast Guard enlisted rate/rating code); WHEC — Coast Guard High Endurance Cutter (United States Coast Guard hull classification code); Roenor'beke — Jellyfish leech (Yizibajohei); RMC — Royal Military College of Canada, the Canadian Forces' tri-service basic officer university (English abbreviation); ADCAP — Advanced Capability (English abbreviation).
Brooke Roberts (USS Samuel B. Roberts) is entitled to wear the following medals/decorations on her uniform:
RIGHT SIDE
The Combat Action Ribbon (retroactive), award for being in direct combat on surface warships or part of ground forces against the enemy; this is the Navy's version of the Army's Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) and similar badges awarded to soldiers who fought in active ground combat missions;
The Presidential Unit Citation, shared award for Taffy Three warships/crews present at the Battle off Samar; and
The Philippines Presidential Unit Citation, shared award for all United States Navy ships/crews who helped in the liberation of the islands from 17 October 1944 to 4 July 1945.
LEFT SIDE
The American Campaign Medal, awarded for service in American home waters;
The Asian-Pacific Campaign Medal with one battle star, awarded for service in the Asian-Pacific theatre of operations (the battle star marking her service in the Battle of Leyte Gulf);
The World War Two Victory Medal, awarded for general service in the Second World War; and
The Philippine Liberation Medal, co-awarded with the republic's PUC for the same reasons as noted above.
As an aside, the medals awarded to Luisa von Bismarck-Schönhausen (KMS Bismarck) will be explained in a future omake.
Shipgirls introduced here, starting with Germany...
Kapitän zur See Alexandra Anastasia, Freiin von Lützow DKM (Seiner Majestät Schiff/Deutsches Marineschiff Lützow [pennant 47])
KptzS Gurdun Pernille Hoffmann DKM (Seiner Majestät Schiff/Deutsches Marineschiff Frauenlob [pennant K26])
KptzS Isabelle Rebekka Feldmann DKM (Seiner Majestät Schiff/Deutsches Marineschiff Rostock [pennant K58])
From Germany, soon to be adopted by Poland...
Kapitän zur See Clara Anna, Fürstin von Greifen DKM (also known as Komandor Klarysa Anna z Gryfici MW) (Seiner Majestät Schiff Pommern [pennant 22], later Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej Pomorze [pennant 01])
This story foreshadows Clara von Greifen/Klarysa z Gryfici (SMS Pommern/ORP Pomorze) joining the Polish Navy (short-formed MW for Marynarka Wojenna ["War Navy"] of course) after the events of this story. All Polish warships get the ship prefix Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej ("Warship of the Republic of Poland", short-formed ORP) naturally; since she is still a capital ship despite her being a pre-dreadnought, Clara/Klarysa's pennant number does not receive a pennant superior letter.
From the magical side of Canada...
Captain (Navy) Dorothy Joan Holland RCN(M) (His/Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Argo [BB-08, formerly pennant 08])
Capt(N) Patricia Beatrice Chennalton RCN(M) (His/Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Chennalton [BB-49, formerly pennant 49])
The backstory of these and their Australian/New Zealander sisters will be explained in a future chapter of Magic and Canada. Specific notes concerning Patricia Chennalton (HMCS Chennalton) can be read in the writer's notes of Part 44 of BmGmM.
...and now the Dominion's normal side...
Acting Sub-Lieutenant Phoebe Renée Alger-Howland RCN (His/Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Kingston [FFE-453])
Phoebe takes after the Blue Oath version of Brooke Roberts (USS Samuel B. Roberts); such can be seen on Danbooru at entry #4159289. She was one of two hundred-and-ten ships of the John C. Butler-class never completed for the United States Navy; like many of them, the would-be DE-427 never got even a name before the contract for her construction was cancelled in 1944. Because of her lack of service, Phoebe was given the basic entry commissioned officer's rank Acting Sub-Lieutenant (short-form ASLt), equal to a United States Navy ensign. Her hull code FFE means Escort Frigate.
As for the ship "named" after the Limestone City of Ontario:
Lieutenant (Navy) Moira Callander Bull RCN (His/Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Frontenac [PC-591, formerly pennant K335])
As there was an active ship named Kingston in the Royal Navy at the time, it was decided to use the name for the county which the Canadian city was a part of for the corvette "named" in her honour. Like all Canadian escort ships, Moira Bull (HMCS Frontenac) received pennant superior letter K during her time in commission; the peacetime hull code assigned to corvette shipgirls in the Royal Canadian Navy is PC (Patrol Corvette), numbered in order of launching from 500-699, marking Frontenac as the ninety-second such vessel launched for Canada. Her rank is Lieutenant (Navy) (short-formed Lt[N]), called such to differentiate from the Army rank of the same name, which is one step down pay-wise from the Navy rank.
And now the United States...
Commander Doreen Alanna Munro USCG (also Commander USN) (United States Coast Guard Cutter Douglas A. Munro [WMSM-422], formerly United States Ship Douglas A. Munro [DE-422])
She takes after Brooke's Warship Girls interpretation, which can be seen on Danbooru at entry #2563574. Being of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), she is given the service's universal ship prefix of United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC). Her hull code WMSM indicates she is a Medium Security Cutter; years ago, she would have got WDE (Coast Guard Destroyer Escort) but given the greater law enforcement emphasis of the Coast Guard, the former hull code fits her more.
The poem Brooke Roberts (USS Samuel B. Roberts) recites here when she moves to launch her starship-self — and the incident surrounding it — actually did happen; the poem was written by her only commanding officer, then-Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland (1910-1973). The events of the ship's passing over the equator can be read about in the third chapter of James D. Hornfischer's 2004 seminal work The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.
Concerning the seaborne USCGC Douglas Munro (hull number WHEC-724), she would be decommissioned in real life in 2021, being sold to Sri Lanka; her new name has yet to be determined at the time this story was written.
HMCS Cataraqui is one of the twenty-four real-life naval reserve divisions (NRD) within the Royal Canadian Navy; like NOSCs of the United States Navy, these are shore-based facilities where part-time sailors gather to train and prepare for service in the active maritime fleet. Cataraqui is located in the city of Kingston itself at the northeastern corner of Lake Ontario, across the river of the same name (also the southern terminus of the Rideau Canal) from the downtown section of said city as noted above. Her "sisterships" introduced in the fifth scene are my creation. HMCS Deseronto, headquartered at Canadian Forces Base Trenton next to the city of the same name on the shores of Lake Ontario, is named in honour of Mohawk warrior Captain John Deseronto AKA Odeserundiye (born in the 1740s, died in 1811); he led his people across the late after the Revolutionary War to settle in a reserve east of modern-day Trenton. HMCS Loyalist, headquartered in Cornwall on the Saint Lawrence River near the Québec border, is named after the United Empire Loyalists; these are people formerly of the then-future United States who remained loyal to the British Crown during the Revolutionary War. And HMCS Otonabee, headquartered in Peterborough on the Trent-Severn Waterway connecting Lakes Ontario and Huron, is named after the Otonabee River where the city itself was first founded in 1819 as Scott's Plains; the town would be incorporated under its proper name in 1850.
The events depicted in the 1988-1990 television series The War of the Worlds, created by Greg Strangis, which forms part of the background lore of this story is based on a re-interpretation of the 1953 film of the same name produced by George Pal and directed by Byron Haskin. The television series' main difference from the movie (and the original novel) was the alien invaders did not come from Mars; at the time Mr. Strangis moved to create the series, the possibility of life on Mars had been totally discounted. In the universe of this story, I have the Mor-Tax (the name of the aliens' home planet as well as their species names; sometimes, the demonym is rendered as "Mor-Taxian") hail from the Crab Nebula, a destroyed star in the constellation of Taurus between 4900-8100 light years from Earth; the nova which destroyed said star was first observed in China in 1054 CE.
Constable (now Staff Sergeant Major) Benton Fraser is the star of the 1994-1998 television crime comedy/drama series Due South, produced by Paul Haggis and starring Paul Gross as Fraser, a somewhat naïve member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who went to work for the Canadian consulate in Chicago in the wake of the murder of his father Sergeant Robert Fraser (played by Gordon Pinsent). Of course, due to corruption in the Force as discovered by Fraser in the pilot episode of the series, he is effectively exiled to the Windy City, later working alongside several local police officers such as Detective Ray Vecchio (played by David Marciano) and his effective stand-in, Detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski (played by Callum Keith Rennie) when Vecchio goes undercover. Once the issues that made Fraser travel south were fully resolved by series' end, he returned to Canada, though the effective "stain" of his exposing of corrupt superiors prevented his being promoted above Constable (short-formed Const) for some time as noted above. As an aside, the rank of Staff Sergeant-Major (SSM) is a unique administrative appointment given most often to a staff-sergeant (S/Sgt; such is roughly equal in rank to a Canadian Forces warrant officer/petty officer first class) appointed as the senior non-commissioned member of a field division of the Force.
Note that neither "P" Division nor "W" Division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) exist in real life. In my stories, "W" Division is the magical-only part of the Force; such was first introduced in Part Nine of Magic and Canada.
The Starship Flight Crew (SFC) badge would incorporate the central crest of a Canadian Forces astronaut (the image of a silver globe with a maple leaf flying on red streaks into a field of stars, the whole framed by red wreaths of laurel) topped by the Royal Crown, silver wings rising up to frame the wreaths (not stretched out to the viewer's left or right as actual astronaut or pilots would be given). Navy personnel would wear the badge with a gold anchor embossed over the centre of the badge. Army personnel assigned to starships wear crossed gold crusader swords over the badge, Air Force personnel wear the plain badge and Special Operations Forces personnel would have tan brown wings, crossed black V-42 stiletto daggers over the centre of the badge. Qualifying for the SFC marks people who have learned the basics of operating all general systems on such a vessel; the personnel from Cataraqui and her sister NRDs seen here all either qualified directly on Kingston or on other starships.
A composite squadron (United States Navy short-code VC) is a mixed-mission unit that controlled the aircraft compliment of an escort aircraft carrier. Composite Squadron 10 (VC-10) was first formed in 1943 to serve as USS Gambier Bay's aircraft unit, flying the Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber and the General Motors-produced version of the Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter (known as the FM-2). After Gambier Bay was sunk, VC-10 returned stateside to prepare for a new deployment overseas when the war ended and the squadron was disbanded. VC-10 would stand up again when the then-existing Utility Squadron 16 (VJ-16) was re-numbered/re-designated VU-10 in 1945; VJ-16 was formed in 1943 in Puerto Rico. The second incarnation of this unit — nicknamed the "Challengers"; the original squadron didn't have an official nickname — would switch back to the VC-10 designation in 1965; said unit was disestablished in 1993 during post-Cold War reductions of naval aviation forces.