DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.
At the Jupiter orbit line (Japan time: Lunchtime)...
Shigaten Benten jolted as the Kashin seemed to rock from stem to stern. "What the fuck was that?!" the biker-babe from the planet Fukunokami demanded.
Seated nearby in the observation bubble on the top spine of the battlewagon as she gazed out towards the solar system's resident giant, the crown princess of the planet Neptune took a deep breath. "No doubt, that is Lum reacting badly to something she just learned about Ataru," Oyuki mused before she sipped her ice tea. After recovering from what the Dragonspeaker had done to her over a day before — not to mention getting a mental "eye-full" thanks to Redet Lum's own Avalonian twin sister, Redet Hensō, concerning what had happened to Moroboshi Ataru on Okusei — Ataru's would-be "wife" had immediately plunged into monitoring satellite-relayed telecommunications signals from Earth to find out what was going on. "Given how much she had done to ensure he could never escape her, that he actually resorted to They Who Must Never Be Named to drive her off is..." She tried to suppress the shudder she automatically felt on thinking about the crazed metahumans of the planet Yiziba. "Understandable."
"Ataru thinks...WE'RE the Scary People?"
That was Redet Ten, who was seated on a couch nearby between Benten's and Oyuki's Avalonian sisters, Shigaten Kamen and Mienai. As the Oni-Urusian kindergarten-age child shuddered at the idea of actually being seen as akin to one of the Yizibajohei of all the races in the known galaxy, Benten's twin placed a comforting hand on his head. "You did become the Scary People to Darling, Ten," the university student now attending one of Noukiios' top-tier post-secondary institutions on the planet Okusei said. Much to the surprise of Redet Lum's friends, their Avalonian clone sisters had all adopted the style the warlord's daughter used for her "husband" given that in Urusian, the word "Ataru" meant "sex-crazed idiot". "Put it this way. You're a normal person trying to live your life, make a relationship work with your oldest childhood friend and doing normal things. Then one of the Scary People come along, threatening the Mother of All Fight Scenes on your home planet if you don't face her in a competition to save your people." As Ten gargled on hearing the ONE phrase in intergalactic discourse that NO ONE wanted to hear for ANY reason whatsoever, Kamen added, "Well, you pull it off by the skin of your teeth. Then this Scary Person decides you're gonna be her mate. Then she forces you to behave as SHE wants you to behave. Even more, she brainwashes your relatives and friends into treating her better than they treated you."
"In effect, Ten, that is what Lum did to Darling," Mienai finished.
Oyuki and Benten winced on hearing that harsh comparison while Ten turned a very pale shade as he imagined what being confronted by one of THEM could do to him. "But...he never treated Lum like she was one of the Scary People!"
"He couldn't really think it through, Ten," Oyuki's twin noted. "Don't forget, he suffered from a split personality and he was under the influence of a being who really didn't care too much for humans given how she had been treated when she became fully sentient centuries ago. You know about Tariko and Miss Negako now, don't you?" At Ten's nod, the housewife — Mienai was now married to one of the Flower Youth of Noukiios, who currently commanded one of the two large expeditionary armies now based on a planet very close to Earth — sipped her tea. "Yes, Darling found Lum attractive. But he never knew many things about her. What's even worse in his eyes, Lum deliberately kept him ignorant on many things. Your people's mating laws, for example. Not to mention Lum's so-called 'most faithful'." She sneered out that last part as Benten and Oyuki winced again on being reminded of HIM. "Once he was finally able to think truly for himself for the first time in a decade, he decided it was best to get Lum — and by extension, all of you — permanently out of his life. If all that happened to him over the last year, what would happen to the next Terran who encountered one of you? Your uncle gave him an enormous responsibility when he declared that Darling would be Earth's tag race champion last year. Much that this is hurting a lot of people, Darling is now taking that very seriously."
"'Sides, it's what Darling wanted in the end," Kamen added. "No aliens on the planet unless they learn how to behave themselves and stop treating Earth like their private play-pen. Turning to the Yizibajohei..." — she ignored the gasps from Oyuki and Ten, much less Benten's squawk — "...to keep them off Earth makes sure of it. Not even that bastard Ōgi's going to do anything about forcing himself on Earth to make his 'goddess' happy. Not that he can..."
That made Oyuki tense. "Kamen, what does that mean?"
The Fukunokami-form Avalonian gave the Neptunian a knowing look. "T'ech'ach Nechma Nukt'ech-kai Ket'echi," she quoted in Noukiite.
The others gargled; the on-board translation fields within Kashin had perfectly translated that phrase. "How...?" Oyuki then hissed out, her mixed feelings for the natives of Phentax Two making her vacillate between relief that she wouldn't be seen anymore as a "holy friend" within the Church of Lum with the total lack of privacy being such forced on her...and sheer, outright terror at the idea that the Galactic Federation's most powerful military member had been subjected to a planet-wide holocaust of destruction that would render the whole alliance very vulnerable to its several larger neighbours. "Why...?"
"Why not?! 'Great Evil', remember?" Benten's twin sneered.
That made the Fukunokami moan. "Fuck! How did he pull THAT off?!"
Her sister smirked. "He fucked a whole tonne of Yizibajohei."
The others screamed before they fell silent as they considered those words.
Three...
Two...
One...
Blast-off!
"HOW COULD HE TWO-TIME LUM...?!" Ten screamed.
"HE AIN'T MARRIED TO HER, REMEMBER?!" Kamen yelled back.
The Oni yelped in fright as he tried to make himself very small. Despite the visible serenity Avalonians projected thanks to a curious psionic power that allowed them to view an energy field they saw as divine — supposedly, this was the metaphysical echo of the Big Bang, an energy version of the transuranic element known more commonly as "mesonium" on Earth — Kamen had also inherited her genetic template's considerable temper. Given how she had been treated at first after she had been created to serve as Benten's literal stand-in in case enemies of the famous expat Vosian bounty hunter Nassur decided to target her, it was understandable. Ten was personally grateful that Nassur and his wife Cinba had helped transport Kamen and her sisters to Okusei so they could live their lives without threat of being "recalled" by Niphentaxian authorities, much less hunted down as "rogue robots"; despite Niphentaxian military power, they were still small in comparison to Noukiios' might. "B-b-but...!"
"Ten!" Mienai snapped as the air around her chilled. "You saw Hensō's memories of what happened. How many times did Darling tag Lum's horns?"
Ten gulped, then feebled out, "O-o-once..."
"And what was happening when that happened?"
"T-t-tag R-r-race..."
"What doesn't happen if an Oni's horns are tagged in a Tag Race?"
Ten shook his head. "Th-th-they're n-n-not m-m-married..."
"Right!" Mienai stated before sipping her tear. "Besides, it's what all of you have always wanted deep down," she coolly added as she gazed knowingly at her twin. "You never approved of Lum's interest in Darling. You got what you wanted in the end, Sister. Your friend is free to live her life once she stops LYING to herself about what happened in the Tag Race. And you wouldn't have to deal with Darling again. What's so wrong with that? All's well."
"Or is it Morningstar Plain that you're still thinking about?" Kamen added.
Oyuki and Benten turned ash-grey as they remembered what they learned via mind-meld with their twins, images taken directly from the Dragonspeaker herself concerning an event over two months before that had forever put a stop to Noukiios' chronic banditry issue on a grassy field some distance from the capital city of Okusei. How Kyech had been escorting her new friend to the university so Ataru's effective twin sister and Earth's first true artificial intelligence could be pulled out of his mind and allowed to live their lives as separate beings. How a virtual ARMY CORPS of highwaymen descended on the Dragonspeaker, hoping to overwhelm her by sheer numbers to remove their primary foe from this existence. How Ataru's horror at seeing people be literally chopped apart before his eyes caused something deep inside him to tap into a strange power and allow the darkest elements of his own soul to burst forth. How he had transformed into a creature that brutally mutilated thousands of bandits with his bare hands, fighting at Kyech's back until the last of them were shredded corpses on Morningstar Plain, all fit for the ch'enghap'i to feast on. And how — even if he had been personally sickened by what he had been made to do by the uncaring Fates — Ataru had vowed to keep that power in strategic reserve just in case someone came along and tried to attack him.
Never mind that most Avalonians — their own twins included — now viewed the man as the living mortal avatar of their own ancient god of death...!
"So you get the best of both worlds," Kamen stated. "Once Lum gets over her feelings for Darling, you get your friend back. Even better, there's no more Ōgi to worry about probin' your diaries like he loved to do all the time. And she don't live close to Darling, who could kill her with no problem whatsoever in case she does something stupid. Like force him to wear clothes to learn what he's thinking or spyin' on HIS diary..." — she smirked as Benten scowled and Oyuki shook her head — "...or forcing him to deal with all her friends with all their problems. You think he had any fun dealing with B-Boy, much less be KIDNAPPED to be made to play at Setsubun, never mind the shit with Elle?"
Another chorus of winces from the others...
...then everyone perked on hearing the lift from the main hull hiss, making them turn as Aruka Ran came up to join them, alongside her own Avalonian twin Damasu and the crown princess-regent of the Karasutengu. "I'm sure the Men In Black will let you go to Earth soon enough, Kurama," the rose-haired Seishin-Urusian teenager and "rival" for the hand of Lum's former fiancé Seq Rei said as the elegant wing-haired Tengu humanoid stepped off the lift to take a seat close to where Oyuki was. "Even if you're not interested in Darling anymore..."
"No, Ran, I've no care for Moroboshi even after learning of Morningstar Plain, much less about the Lady Negako and Tariko," Kurama stated as she sat, smiling in amusement as Ran paled in horror on being reminded of what Damasu had gladly told her about that bloody day on Okusei. It was quite apparent to the ruler of the planet Tengu: That particular ability now made Moroboshi Ataru a very lethal threat to the man Ran loved. "While the power of his alter-ego is quite impressive if he was able to keep up with Lady K'ekhech throughout that fight, not to mention earn the respect of the likes of the Lady Academician and Lady Infinity, I have my own reasons to not deal with him anymore. Given how much I abused him when I tried to make him a 'better' man — not knowing of his mental issues — I doubt he'll have any kind feelings for me." She smirked. "Besides, given his current romantic interest, I care not to have to deal with a Terran version of an angry ch'uongtechhu. Given what has been happening on Earth over the last several years, I don't want to have some idiot there blame me for helping unleash that mad flock of hit'kyechtechhu they've been fighting."
The others stared in shock at her. "'House angels'? 'Abyssal angels'? What in Kōri's Name are you talking about, Kurama?" Oyuki hotly demanded, making all her friends gape at her. It took a lot to get a ripe oath like that from the heiress apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of Neptune. Then again, given that the legendary ch'uokyek existed on Noukiios and her colony worlds, the chances were awfully good that the living heralds of the Lord of Heaven Himself existed and interacted with mortals throughout the Imperial Dominion. "Since when do the Terrans have to deal with such? I've heard nothing about this!"
That made Kurama laugh in delight on seeing the normal calm and collected Oyuki suddenly become so unstrung over such lack of intelligence. "My! To believe Earth's magicals and the Special Committee were able to keep THAT from you!" she breathed out before her voice dissolved into snickers for a moment as she moved to compose herself. After a moment, she took a deep breath. "Starting approximately fifteen years ago, sea ships began to disappear in increasing numbers all over the planet. It was ignored at first; travel on Earth's oceans is seen as hazardous and such disappearances, while quite tragic, were viewed as an acceptable risk. But the disappearances increased and it became obvious to leaders of magical enclaves on Earth that something strange was happening out in the oceans. As this was seen as their bailiwick thanks to this Statute of Secrecy of theirs that forces magical governments to keep control over what are traditionally seen as 'magical' beings, they moved to stop it and ensure normal Terrans never learned the truth. Three years ago, that changed, quite violently. Beings resembling humanoid versions of warships from both their world wars appeared and began to attack coastal cities and island nations wholesale, unleashing casualties at a scale that rivals the deaths of the whole Vosian Civil War and rendered nearly half a billion people homeless worldwide. Their numbers and powers were so great that the military fleets of every nation on the planet were wiped out in a fortnight." As the others gaped in shock, the Tengu princess added, "By the time your friend first met Moroboshi a year ago, Japan was literally cut off from all her trading partners. It surprises me Lum never told you about the rationing that was going on at the time.
"However, around three years ago, the Fates delivered an interesting solution to force the Abyssals to heel and allow humanity to regain control of the seas: The spirits of warships that fought in their Second World War, transformed into human beings with the ability to manipulate technomagical representations of their weapons and sensory. The 'shipgirls' as they are called; most of them are in the form of women our age...though in nations whose cultures refer to such vessels with male pronouns, 'shipboys' have appeared. With that, they banded together in their old fleets and took the fight back to these Abyssals."
"Why were we never told?!" Oyuki demanded as Ran gaped and Benten shook her head. "The Special Committee always promised people they would tell...!"
"They were nearly wiped out when the Abyssals launched their general campaign," Kurama cut her off. "Remember, they were based in New York City...and that is on the Atlantic Ocean." As Oyuki winced, the Tengu princess shook her head. "Besides, those agents who escaped the destruction of the Special Committee's headquarters that I was able to speak to when I visited Earth to seek a husband in the last couple years told me that they had discovered that in body, these 'shipgirls' and 'shipboys' are actually capable of parenting children with normal humans. Given the sheer power they possess, such will be passed on to offspring. What does that spell in the long term?" She sipped her tea.
"The Dawn of Power."
The room turned as cold as deepest space on hearing THAT phrase...!
Eta-jima, that moment...
"Hishō! Are you alright?!"
Jessica Dover blinked on hearing Fubuki's panicked voice, then she took a deep breath as the ghostly phoenix-like aura around her withdrew into her body. "I'm alright," she assured the wide-eyed destroyer. "I just didn't fully compensate for the spiritual mass you all possess when I teleported you back here from Wokyū's home. Get a good meal into me and I'll be as right as rain."
Moroboshi Tariko hummed as she considered that before she gaped. She understood all the extra issues when it came to teleporting a shipgirl. "You just moved three Yamato-class battleships at sixty-nine kilotonnes..."
"Plus four Iowa-class battleships at fifty-two K," her brother Ataru added. "Two Bismarck-class battleships at forty-two K, four Littorio-class battleships at forty K, Kaga-san here at thirty-eight K, Akagi-san at thirty-six K, two Shōkaku-class carriers at thirty-two K, two Fusō-class battleships at thirty K, four Kongō-class battleships at twenty-seven K each, Katsuragi-chan here at twenty-two K, three Yorktown-class carriers at twenty K, Hiryū-san at eighteen K, Sōryū-san and five Admiral Hipper-class cruisers at sixteen K each, Hōshō-sensei at eight K, two Tenryū-class cruisers at four K, seventeen destroyers at two K each, plus your friends, Ataru, Harry and me and our hovercycles, not to mention Hoppō-chan and her sisters! AND Yonaga-san and Chennalton-san, too?!"
"Damn!" Heermann gasped. "Superman ain't got NOTHING on you, General!"
Kii then gazed on Yonaga. "What's your standard displacement, Onē-sama?"
"Eighty-three thousand tonnes," the seventh carrier answered.
"What about you, Miss C?" Hoel asked the Canadian super-battleship whose hand she had immediately grabbed onto before everyone left Kobashira-jima.
"Eighty-seven thousand tonnes right now," Chennalton answered.
Hearing that, Ataru shook his head. "Damn! That's 1,365,000 tonnes total! I don't even think Kyech is anywhere close to being THAT powerful!"
"Don't be too sure about that," Tariko advised. "She can teleport between dimensions and between solar systems when she puts her heart into it."
He nodded. "True..."
Martin Larsden had perked on hearing that Korean-sounding name. "You're acquainted with the Lady K'ekhech of Noukiios, Mister Moroboshi?"
"We met her on Okusei when we were still stuck sharing one body, Larsden-keishi," Tariko explained as she and Ataru moved to guide their hovercycles over to a nearby storage shed. "Her friend Nengmek'i-ojiichan was the one who saved us from being made to marry Redet three months ago by nearly burning all the idiots down in the cathedral while we were trying to make a break for it."
"Why were you being forced to marry Miss Redet?" Benton Fraser asked.
"Because Baka Kā-san and Baka Tō-san were hell-bent on getting out of their middle-class lives and wanted to con Redet's parents into giving them good jobs while sacrificing us along the way, Benton-san," Tariko sneered. "And this is all because we lost our twin brother Kaeru when we were three! He was the favoured child, not us!" She shook her head. "Greedy assholes...!"
"I assume that Negako got matters resolved," Martin noted.
"Indeed I did, Martin. Welcome to Eta-jima."
People turned as Moroboshi Negako came up. "Nega-sensei!" Katsuragi cheered as she scampered over to hug the ninjutsu grandmaster's leg.
Negako lightly smiled as she gazed down at the baby carrier, then her eyebrow arched as she stared at Chennalton. The battleship returned that look with a placid stare, which made Negako's lips quirk in indulgent amusement, that action making her siblings and the two War Hawks present gape in shock. "Now, Katsuragi, did you ask Jessica to take you to visit Wokyū and her flotilla?"
"Ai, Sensei!"
"Excellent." She then gazed at Martin. "I assume it was you who dealt with that cruiser formation that was detected just an hour ago, Martin?"
"It wasn't too difficult," the man-hunter from New Brunswick declared with a smirk. "At least, I got all the battleships enticed with the idea of being able to double and possibly triple their gun range to prepare them to load missiles." As all the capital ships perked at the thought of getting that ability, he added, "Let's hope Admiral Harlan's technomages can devise the conversion matrices necessary soon to let these girls carry modern gear."
"You have always been aware of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron?"
Martin chuckled. "I trained most of their petty officers and gun team sergeants when they were all recruits passing through 'Depot' Division in peacetime, Negako. There was no way a secret like that could be kept from me."
"Does Professor Dumbledore know, Commissioner?" Harry Potter asked.
"I'm sure he suspects such, Mister Potter. The rumours concerning the First Squadron are normally headed under the title 'Leviathan Homicidae' and the local translations in Europe. When the Seventh Cavalry Division — augmented with the First and Fifth Foresters Brigades — made the final push on Nurmengard in 1945, he did overhear many Foresters who transferred ashore from their duties as gun crews aboard the battleships speak of their missions. Of course, no exact details were revealed, but Albus is a bright fellow. He wouldn't have been accepted as the apprentice of a man like Nicolas Flamel if he wasn't."
That made the American shipgirls gape. "Wait! Your gun crews weren't naval weapons technicians?!" Wisconsin asked Chennalton, using the old Canadian term for what the United States Navy would term a "gunner's mate". "Why?!"
"Because in the normal world, they trained as artillerymen, Madame Wisconsin," the Canadian battleship replied. "It was necessary in that case."
"Oh! The TOT shooting, you mean!" Iowa said, nodding in understanding.
"'TOT'?!" Vittorio Veneto asked.
"'Time on Target', Veneto," New Jersey answered. "It's where you aim all the guns in a battery at the same place, then fire the guns to make the shells hit the target at the same time!" The raven-haired battleship then gazed at Chennalton. "One of your friends was out near Cape Engaño during Leyte! One of the two three stack battleships with the eighteen-inch guns! She took out one of those things you were built to fight! Admiral Halsey and his staff watched it; they thought it was the finest shooting they ever saw...even if they found it weird that she only fired one gun per turret in each salvo!"
"How was her mainmast angled? Pointing forward or aft?" Chennalton asked.
Jersey hummed. "Forward."
"Lady Elgin," the Canadian battleship affirmed. "She had 'E' Commando of the Foresters as her gun crew. They were the finest gunners in the squadron."
"But why shoot just one gun per turret, poi?" Yūdachi asked. "You and your friends have the widest width of any capital ship on the high seas, poi! There was no problem firing full broadsides at any sort of target, poi!"
"Madame Yūdachi, we were aiming at a target that was usually thirty metres wide from a range of forty kilometres," Chennalton explained, making all the other shipgirls gape in shock. "These things' 'magazines' — their magical cores, in other words — were at the centre of their 'bodies'. Sunbeam's and Sundown's crew learned this the hard way at the start when they swept in to clean up the mess from Coronel and the Falklands in 1914. Standard broadsides even with mesonium warheads didn't affect them unless we hit their cores. Thus, by the time Second Dogger Bank happened and Erinsville and Elgin were in commission, we were able to take them out even when they were using the physical forms of salvaged warships to try to protect themselves from our gunfire."
All the shipgirls cringed. "They used salvaged ships?!" Zuikaku exclaimed.
Chennalton nodded as she waved the others towards the mess hall. "Throughout the Great War; they changed their tactics and stayed as pure energy beings for the Second World War," she stated as Ataru and Tariko headed off to stow their hovercycles. As the destroyers winced at the idea of having their hulls salvaged to be possessed by those things, the battleship added, "It was quite distasteful to clean up even if they were 'performing' for Warspite and her sisters while they were busy fighting Jutland. Erin and Elgin had nightmares about that while they were adjusting to being shipgirls, but it had to be done. Just like Carol and Jane had to sweep into the Mediterranean to clean up the messes left behind from Gallipoli and the other battles in that region."
"I take it Erinsville-san doesn't care for being credited in sinking the most number of warships in one day's engagement," Musashi noted. "I remember Warspite-san speaking of seeing all the ships sunk by her that day."
"Never mention it to her, Madame Musashi."
A sage nod from the ash-haired battleship. "I will remember that..."
"Yamato-san!"
Everyone stopped and turned as a light cruiser raced over to them. "What is it, Ōyodo-san?" Yamato asked, surprised to see the shock on Ōyodo's face.
Stopping, Ōyodo took a moment to recover herself and stabilize the steam in her boilers before she gazed at Yamato. "The supplies, Yamato-san! Two CC-177s just landed at the airport! One of them was delivering Bonaventure-san and all her destroyer escorts; they even brought several American kanmusu with them who just reported to Great Lakes! But the other one had supplies...!"
"Magically shrunk?"
"Hai!" Ōyodo breathed out. "Enough to last for a month of intensive...!"
She caught herself as her mind noted on that unfamiliar voice, then she turned to look...before her jaw dropped to her bilges on seeing the tall battleship in the dark bodysuit with Canadian naval markings on her. Seeing this vessel's impressive spiritual echo made Ōyodo blink several times before she sniffed, the relief she felt overwhelming her. "You had all that brought for us...?"
"You people have been forced to operation on short supply for far too long, Madame Ōyodo," Chennalton stated. "Relax. Now that the Corps of Air Cavalry have regained flight status to contribute crews to transport squadrons and form defence squadrons to help with coastal patrols, we purchased spare aircraft from the American Air Force to help transport supplies and the Air Cavalry are teaming with the Foresters to get them to hard-to-reach locations. You can finally start taking your territorial waters back and keep them under your control." She raised a cautionary finger. "The pallets on Globemaster 706 that are marked with red stripes are to be handled with great caution and sent right to your magazine here. They're mesonium munitions for my main guns, which can be fired by Madame Iowa and her sisters once their barrels are properly re-coated to stave off the wear and tear. We also have shells to fit everyone else here, just forged at the ammunition depot at Smith Inlet."
Ōyodo nodded. "Hai, um..." She noted the name tape. "Chennalton-san."
Chennalton winced; the light cruiser had pronounced her name as it was spelled in English, with the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate "ch" to start the first syllable and not the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant "sh" sound. "Not name!" a childish voice snapped, making Ōyodo look to see a very upset Tomoko glaring at her. Before the light cruiser could ask what was going on — she could recognize Hoppō, but hadn't known that she just gained nine sisters — the childish Abyssal knelt down to sketch the katakana シェノーットン on the sand.
That made Ōyodo yelp in embarrassment. "Sumimasen...!"
"It's alright, Madame Ōyodo," the battleship assured her. "It's a natural mistake. Just remember how General Chennault's name was pronounced."
"H-h-hai...!" She then perked. "Oh, Akagi-san!"
"What is it, Ōyodo-san?" the carrier asked.
"They shipped in your favourite," Ōyodo announced with a grin. "I'll mention it to the chefs to have it ready for tomorrow's breakfast."
With that, she headed off. People blinked, then gazed on the raven-haired carrier...before they winced on seeing the look of orgasmic JOY on Akagi's face. "Oh, shit!" Zuikaku moaned out. "She's gonna be zoned out all day!"
Sinking to her knees, Akagi moaned as she gazed skyward. "Maple syrup...!"
"Magically grown by house elves," Chennalton then teased. "Endless supply!"
The carrier squawked, then slumped in a dead faint as all her internal systems overloaded on hearing that news. "Chennalton-san!" Kaga gasped.
"Madame Kaga, as I just told Madame Ōyodo, you've been on short rations for your operational levels for years!" the battleship insisted. "Magical farms in Canada who've been cut off from their markets because of the Abyssals have a glut of supplies that need to be moved! It'll go rotten if it's not consumed! Don't worry; the Kantō Magical Association was able to pay for it all!" As Kaga gaped on hearing how much the magicals of Canada were willing to support them, Chennalton's nose twitched. "I do think I'm smelling poutine being...!"
"POUTINE?!"
In a massive explosion of smoke and dust, the flagship of the Kidō Butai disappeared through the main doors into the mess hall. The others gazed that way, then Zuikaku moaned. "Damn!" the pony-tailed carrier moaned out. "Even if Kaga-san can be a pain in the butt at times, she's nowhere close to being as embarrassing as Akagi-san is when her cravings get the better of her!"
Kaga twitched. "Zuikaku-san...!"
"Kaka! Zui! No fight!"
Both yelped on seeing Katsuragi glare at them, then they ducked the baby carrier's angry look. "Hoppō, what poutine?" Mimi, the child Abyssal who had been taken off Mikura-jima by Chennalton, Fusō and Yamashiro, then asked.
"Poutine yummy!" Hoppō said as she took Mimi's hand in her own, then walked her into the mess hall. "Hoppō sisters eat poutine!" she declared.
"Poi!" Yūdachi called out as she pointed to the mess hall.
The other Abyssals quickly scrambled into the mess hall, they followed by all the destroyers in a mass gaggle. Chennalton watched them all go inside, then she knelt before Katsuragi. "Katsuragi-chan, Erinsville baked a special cake for a good little girl like you!" the battleship then said.
The baby carrier blinked. "Erin? Shenō's friend?"
Chennalton held up her hand to allow the holographic image of a battleship to appear over the palm. As the others looks, Musashi hissed out in recognition of that ship, which distantly resembled a hybrid of one of the second South Dakota-class battleships and a Scharnhorst-class light battleship...albeit with two twin gun turrets forward and aft along with a well-built tripod foremast, not to mention the wide, long stern to allow an internal hangar bay for spotter aircraft. Of course, the flagship of Chennalton's squadron was depicted in her World War Two form, with forests of anti-aircraft guns and a heavy battery of 5 inch 38 calibre twin turrets on the side of her superstructure. Seeing that, Katsuragi blinked before she pointed. "Ryū'zen!" she gasped before pointing to Zuikaku. "Ryū'zen bring Zui home!" she declared, then she blinked. "Erin?"
"Hai, that's her name," Chennalton asserted. "When you were bringing all the brave people back to Japan after the war, Madame Zuikaku's survivors were transferred to you when you got wet from the bad storm!" As Zuikaku gaped, the battleship added, "You remember when Erinsville's crew made the rain go away?"
Katsuragi nodded. "Ragisuke wet! Erin make rain go away!"
"Do you want the cake Erinsville made you?"
A rapid, eager nod came from the baby carrier. "Ragisuke want Erin's cake!"
"Let's go!" Chennalton then gazed on Zuikaku as she flashed an encoded message. «Get a seat away from the others. We're going to reverse what Yūdachi accidentally did with the Eagle Staff issued to Beacon Hill.»
Seeing that, Zuikaku nodded, grinning. «You got it!»
Everyone then raced into the mess hall...
Approaching Tinian, same time (local time: An hour after lunch)...
"Um...excuse me, Miss Jane..."
"Yes, Miss Juneau, what is it?"
"What are you hoping to find here?"
The large battleship calmly approaching the island from where the world's only two nuclear strike missions launched in wartime originated sighed. To normal humans and most magical humans, she appeared to be a statuesque yet quite well-muscled beauty with wavy and styled dark auburn hair framing a well-formed face pierced with dark blue eyes. Like all ships of the Royal Canadian Navy, she was in a bodysuit, gunmetal grey to mark her as one of the eight magical ships built to fight sea monsters in both world wars, the pendant number 04 written on her upper thighs in white. To shipgirls, she was a long, wide battleship, the largest and heaviest of all the big-gun ships ever built and worlds ahead of her time when she was launched in mid-1915 to hunt what were effectively seen now as "proto-Abyssals" by one hell of an incredible magical naval officer and native of Elgin County in Ontario named Francis William Harlan. Possessing three funnels as warships of that age often had, her middle stack proudly bore the ubiquitous red maple leaf of Canada on its flanks. She still had her tall, well-balanced tripod foremast topped with modern radar systems and excellent optics. Her very clean decks were now dotted with four Mark 41 vertical launch systems, four quad Mark 141 launchers for the Harpoon anti-ship missile and modern dual-purpose guns augmented with Phalanx CIWS mounts and automated Bushmaster chain guns. Her wide stern with its transom end had been totally rebuilt to carry two Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone anti-submarine helicopters; both of them were now aloft to help their mothership scour the island ahead of them. And she bristled with four twin-gun turrets carrying Mark "A" 46 calibre 18 inch naval rifles, forged at a special arsenal magically hidden in the Laurentian Uplands of northeast Québec near her birthplace at Tadoussac; their housings were shaped akin to what American fast battleships carried in the Second World War in lieu of the modified British-designed housings for the ship's old BL 18 inch 40 calibre Mark I rifles. With THOSE beauties, Lady Jane could reach out and touch someone from twenty-four nautical miles away!
"What I hope to find, Miss Juneau, is nothing," the adopted native of La Haute-Côte-Nord and Ottawa — through her namesake, the Chief Witch of the Canadian Wizengamot at the time the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (Magical) was established in 1910, Viscountess Jane Smith of Rideau — stated. "The natives of this island were lifted to Saipan when the Abyssals swept the Commonwealth clean of human habitation, then were evacuated to Japan. However..."
"One must never assume," the namesake of the capital city of Alaska noted.
"Yes."
"Hopefully, it'll just be little kids like those two we found at Ban-...!"
"Miss Sullivans, do NOT call that site by that horrid nickname!"
The Sullivans yelped on hearing that stern statement from the battleship she, William D. Porter, Cassin Young and O'Bannon were now escorting. "Sorry!"
Jane nodded. "I would think you would better remember your gracious hosts' own sensibilities," she added as the group of Japanese kanmusu sailing with the impromptu American/Canadian task force smiled. "That area is a war grave, no different than a sunken warship or a battlefield. Respect that...!"
She perked as a signal came in from one of her two Cyclones, making the others all gaze her way. "What is it, Jane-san...?" Atago asked as she and Takao both braced themselves, making the members of Destroyer Division Four — Kagerō-class destroyers Arashi, Maikaze, Nowaki and Hagikaze — also tense.
"Airport Princess," the battleship announced. "On the North Airfield."
The kanmusu all tensed, many faces paling as the potential implications of this shook them hard. They knew their history and what had been launched from that specific airfield in the summer of 1945 to bring the Greater East Asia War to an end in nuclear hellfire. "As a matter of fact," Jane added, her fists clenching in anger as she considered the ugly possibilities of what her scouts had just discovered, "...she's positioned herself beside the bomb pits where those things were loaded aboard Enola Gay and Bockscar. Something tells me this one wants to summon earth magic stemming from the uranium and plutonium that were used in those abominations of warfare to create similar weapons."
Everyone turned stark-white. "Holy shit...!" O'Bannon hissed out.
"Can you take it out, Miss Jane?" Sullivans asked.
"Easily," the battleship assured them. "However, to ensure that this thing doesn't try to reconstitute herself, I'll need my 'special' shells..."
«Go for Jane!»
"I hear you, Carol," Jane called back as the other shipgirls tensed; the Canadian battleship had given her companions the frequency she and her sister battleships always used while away from port. "You finished with Guam?"
«Just done. Spotted what's on the North Airfield?»
"Just got the basic look. Any details?"
«Yes. Two bombers with the magical auras of Nakajima Renzans cross-bred with Silverplate-augmented Boeing Superfortresses,» the voice of Carolina, the second of the Erinsville-class battleships and Jane's companion in missions that spanned from the Mediterranean during World War One to the Solomons and the central Pacific during World War Two, answered. «That princess has a disgusting sense of humour. I say it's time to terminally upbraid her on it.»
"True. But we do have to perform a 'May I?' dance, first."
«Understood. Let the others listen in.»
"Right." With that, Jane raised her hand, a large holographic screen appearing before her. Miniature versions of that screen then appeared before all the other shipgirls, making them gape in shock as the battleship manipulated the touch controls before her. "G.I. Jane, go for Solomon and Rose Puncher, Priority One. Side links to Clementine, Tavern Girl, Spitfire and Ladyhawke."
The American destroyers all snickered on hearing that nickname for the Canadian battleship; it had been chosen for Lady Jane by a normal-born officer who remembered a toy series produced by Hasbro back in the 1980s and the animated series based on it made by Sunbow and Marvel. A moment later, a viewing window appeared on the screen before Jane, revealing an image that had made every American shipgirl summoned either at Eta-jima or at Great Lakes gape in total disbelief when they first beheld their current commander-in-chief. «Miss Jane, good afternoon,» the President of the United States called out from the Oval Office. Also present with Barack Obama was the Secretary of Defence, Ashton Carter, and the Secretary of Magic, Professor Samuel Quahog. «Something wrong?»
"Something that requires the Prime Minister's input as well, Mister President," Jane replied. "Good evening, Mister Secretary. Colonel Quahog."
Samuel G. Quahog was a jovial man appearing to be in his late forties in normal human terms. A native of Washington County in Rhode Island, he was an alumnus of Ilvermorny from the Masters Class of 1929. He was one of many who joined the magical wing of the United States Marine Corps to fight against the Greater East Asia Liberation Army during the War of Liberation; he topped out as a lieutenant colonel as deputy commander of the 72nd Marine Regiment, who helped the magical natives of Indonesia fully free themselves from Dutch control when that war ended. A fan of quidditch and quadpot, he had been the second leader of a magical government now affiliated to the International Confederation of Wizards to throw his full support behind total cooperation with normal leaders when it came to dealing with the Abyssals, following the example of his old drill master from Edmonton. «Good afternoon, Miss Jane. Lucky thing you caught us all here in the office when you called in. Hello, ladies!»
All the American shipgirls had automatically braced themselves on seeing their president. "Good evening, Mister President. Secretary Carter. Colonel Quahog," Juneau answered for her subordinates with a bow of her head.
"Konban wa, Obama-daitōryō. Carter-daijin. Quahog-hakase," Atago greeted on behalf of the kanmusu under her command. "How is the weather in Washington?"
«Quiet evening, Miss Atago,» the President stated. «Ah! There's Justin!»
«Hello, Barack,» the voice of the Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada called out from his office on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa. As many shipgirls immediately shivered on taking in Justin Trudeau's handsome looks, they were quick to note he had been joined by his chief deputies in dealing with the Abyssals, Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan (Lieutenant Colonel, the British Columbia Regiment [Duke of Connaught's Own] [RCAC], retired) and Minister of Magical Affairs Professor Edward Stewart (Warrant Officer Class I, "S" Commando, Royal Canadian Foresters, retired). «Hello, Jane! Girls, good to see you all again! How many others are in on this...?»
A new window then appeared. «I'm here, Mister Prime Minister. Ministers.»
«Miss Erinsville,» the President saluted. «This must be quite an important message for you to get her involved in this, Miss Jane.»
«I'm here as well, Mister President, Mister Prime Minister,» a new voice then cut in as a window displaying a large number of shipgirls with her. «I'm with General Dover and Commissioner Larsden now at Eta-jima.»
«Here as well, sir,» the comforting voice the commander-in-chief of all shipgirls and shipboys hailed from her office at Eta-jima.
«Just got up,» a grunting voice echoed from inside a tent in London.
«Long night, Dean?» the Prime Minister asked.
«No, Justin,» the leader of the War Hawks answered in amusement. «Erin had to go clean out a pack of Abyssals attacking Tinworth Beach.»
«Ah! Hello, Samuel! Edward!» a jovial voice called out. «Mister President! Mister Prime Minister! My, it's nice to confirm some old sea stories!»
«You know why it was kept secret, Albus,» Quahog advised him.
Albus Dumbledore nodded; he had just apparated over to Dean's headquarters tent in Bushy Park. «Now I do understand. Please convey my compliments to Admiral Harlan for the level of security he placed over such a formation, Edward. It was superbly well done even if the Foresters in the First and Fifth Brigades drew on their experience and reflected on all their adventures when they served with the First Battleship Squadron when they were in Europe helping my people and the Seventh Cavalry Division finally stop Gellert.» His eyes twinkled. «If Miss Māori and her sisters haven't told you, Miss Erinsville, please accept my most sincere compliments at such excellent shooting this evening.»
«It was necessary, Headmaster,» the calm voice of the flagship of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron answered. «Even if your people have been kept critically blind in many ways due to the dangerous lack of teaching at Hogwarts because of constant government interference in the syllabus, the people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and their friends deserve George Crosses for their actions over the last decade and more. When I speak to Her Majesty the next chance I get, I'll personally pass on that recommendation.»
«Hear! Hear!» the Canadian defence minister chanted with a nod.
«What's the problem today, Miss Jane?» the President then asked.
Jane took a deep breath. "Mister President, Mister Prime Minister, my Cyclone scouts just confirmed the presence of an airfield princess on Tinian Island, right at the weapons pits on the North Airfield where two B-29 Superfortresses were loaded with nuclear munitions to perform attack missions on Japan in August of 1945," the battleship coldly declared, eliciting a chorus of screams from the background at Eta-jima; hearing that, she realized Chennalton was now in the mess hall. "It has been confirmed by my companion battleship Carolina. As of now, two Abyssal heavy bombers resembling a cross between the Nakajima G8N Renzan four-engine bomber and the Boeing B-29 Superfortress in Silverplate format used by the 509th Composite Group in those days are being prepared over the bomb pits from where the Little Boy and Fat Man devices were loaded aboard aircraft for delivery to Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Special Missions 13 and 16. It is within the range of my and Carolina's rifles. Since it is American sovereign territory, it is only proper and right that I must seek your direct permission, Mister President, to use Mark XLVI high-yield mesonium munitions to destroy the princess AND those bombers. As well as your authorization, Mister Prime Minister, to make use of such weapons in an attack mission."
Silence fell, then the Prime Minister sighed. "Barack?"
"There is no one on that island, Miss Jane?" the President asked.
«We can confirm before we fire, Mister President,» Carolina advised.
"Please do so. If all is clear, you have my authorization. Justin?"
"You have my authorization, ladies," the Prime Minister declared.
Jane nodded. "Cruiser Juneau, do you confirm the President's statement?"
"I confirm," the anti-aircraft light cruiser said.
"Cruiser Atago, do you also confirm the President's statement?"
"Hai," the heavy cruiser affirmed with a steely nod. "I confirm."
«I confirm the Prime Minister's direct order to release Mark XLVI ordnance,» Erinsville called out from somewhere in the English Channel.
"Very well, Flag," Jane declared, echoed by her sistership, then the larger battleship took a deep breath. "For all those who were involved in Operation: Crossroads..." she declared. "Do NOT watch what happens next!"
Eta-jima, the mess hall...
As that declaration echoed over the mess hall — Chennalton was transmitting it from her communications suite to the flat-screen television sets on the bulkheads — Inazuma quaked. "Does she h-h-have to do th-this, nanodesu...?"
"Airport princess trying to redo the fuckin' missions to burn Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the ground?" Tenryū hissed out. "No choice, Inazuma-chan..."
"It'd be probably Tōkyō and Kyōto, Ten," Johnston mused from nearby as others in Taffy 3 shook their heads, stunned that the Abyssals were willing to go THAT far to strike down humans in large numbers. "General Groves was hot to trot to burn Kyōto to the ground since it was the only major city General LeMay hadn't been able to flatten by then. Your Heavenly Sovereign's there. And Tōkyō was where Kongō and her sisters first forced the Abyssals back three years ago."
"Poi...!" Yūdachi moaned as Fubuki, Mutsuki and Kisaragi comforted her.
"Oi, Eugen-chan!" Ataru barked out. "Don't look at it!"
Heads snapped over to see a shuddering German heavy cruiser standing, staring in determination at the main screen. As Bismarck got up to force Prinz Eugen away from looking at the images, the adopted native of Paris and Chambéry in the territory of her namesake's home duchy near Geneva shook her head. "NEIN!" she barked, making her companion from Operation Rheinübung jolt. "Verzeihen Sie mir, alter Freund..." she then hissed. "I need to see this...!"
"You won't do it alone, Eugen-chan."
That was light cruiser Sakawa, who got up to stand beside her fellow Crossroads veteran, her hand reaching out to grasp that of the heavy cruiser who survived both the Able and Baker tests in the autumn of 1946, just as Nagato could have done had not the radiation from the second bomb prevented damage control crews from boarding her to keep her afloat after the second test. Staring at this, Yonaga rose from her place beside her friends from the Kidō Butai to stand behind the cruisers, placing hands on their shoulders. They looked up at her, then shuddered as they felt the carrier's strength flood them. At a nearby table, Nagato and Saratoga tightly held each other as a hush fell over the room.
"What's the yield?" Iowa whispered to Martin Larsden; the American battleships and carriers were seated together with Yamato and her sisters at one table.
"Five kilotons each," the police commissioner reported. "The shells fly at 1,464 metres per second. At their standard engagement range of 41,000 metres, it takes 28 seconds for the shell to hit. At sea level, sonic speed..."
"Is 343.2 metres per second," the lead ship of her class breathed out, an awed whistle in her voice. "She won't hear the damned things coming..."
"That thing doesn't deserve a warning," Wisconsin muttered.
"Strange that there's no recon aircraft at Tinian," New Jersey mused. "Just because the whole island was a mass bomber base for the Twentieth Air Force, there should be recon aircraft or a CAP to protect the place from attack."
Iowa smirked. "Let's not call in Master Chief Murphy, Dragon!"
"Amen to that," Missouri breathed out...
Northeast of Tinian, range 40,500 metres from the North Airfield...
Battleship Carolina remained effectively at station keeping, steering a course to keep her target — the bomb pit where Bockscar had been loaded with Fat Man — at exactly the same range before she fired her rifles. Sailing to the outboard of the second Erinsville-class battleship were members of Destroyer Division Twenty-four. Umikaze, Yamakaze, Kawakaze and Suzukaze had been placed under Atago's and Takao's command for a sweep of the area of the Marianas Islands since Naka was still recovering from her last escort mission from Canada and needed to take some time to catch up on her public relations duties. The dark-haired, tomboyish battleship with the almost black eyes kept her radar and optics focused on the treed island over forty kilometres away, just beyond the southern tip of Saipan. She had been shocked to note there was no standing air patrol over either island, to say anything of nearby Guam. Given the strategic import of what the airport princess was obviously doing...!
"Any signal, Sempai?" Suzukaze then asked.
Carolina hummed...then she perked as a message came in from one of her two CH-148 Cyclones now flying high over the east shore of Tinian. "Go for Jane."
«Jane here,» her long-time companion battleship called back.
"Sweep of the east sectors of Tinian show clear."
«Confirm sweep of west sectors also clear,» Lady Jane called back.
"Firing my first salvo in two minutes, mark."
«Confirm.»
To both sides of the tall woman now forming the spiritual core of one of the world's largest warships, four turrets adjusted themselves to bring their starboard tubes to directly target the pit where Bockscar had received Fat Man decades before to carry out Special Mission 16. In her technomagical soul, computers based on processor technology developed by highly-skilled programmers working for BlackBerry's magical wing went to work, performing intense yet basic trigonometry to ensure the four shells would land perfectly on target at the very same moment, unleashing the equivalent power of the Nagasaki atomic bomb on the demon now intent on doing same to Japan. Carolina then kicked her engines to reverse, committing a combat stop within two ship lengths before her turbines went to station-keeping to keep her steady. Once the computers made the final measurements, adjustments were made in her Mark "A" naval rifles...
"One minute, mark."
«Confirm.»
An eerie silence fell over the scene as the destroyers accompanying Carolina scanned with optics to ensure no spotter plane accidentally appeared to spoil the attack. Given that the kanmusu were based at Eta-jima, visits to the A-Bomb dome in downtown Hiroshima had been a natural thing for them to do. While it had been disheartening to see the wrecked trade building and see the photos and videos of that awful attack, it had convinced Umikaze and those like her to be far better than the monsters that had unleashed death and destruction on millions just to help Japan "equal" the nations of the West in that most awful of games: Empire building. After all, the carriers of the Kidō Butai weren't the only ones who felt disgust at the continued denial of things like the Rape of Nánjīng, much less the issue of comfort women from Korea and elsewhere...!
"Firing."
Four naval rifles roared as they spat out their shells, causing a sonic boom to burst over the scene as they were accelerated by the special propellant used by Carolina to send them flying at Mach 4.2 right at the North Airfield...
Eta-jima...
Nagato felt Saratoga's hands tightly grip hers as she saw the graphic at the upper left corner of the main view screen in the cafeteria showing eight 1.7 tonne shells racing at over four times the speed of sound from the barrels of two of the Ryūseizen to their target at the northern end of Tinian. Both couldn't, wouldn't, look away from the main image, taken from one of Carolina's Cyclones at a safe range of twenty kilometres east of target point. It now showed the image of an island whose soil was blackening from the evil presence that placed herself at the spiritually darkest point on Tinian in Japanese eyes. While it was a relief to see the Abyssals hadn't put any sort of combat air patrol over the island to protect what they were doing there, their...
All the view screens nearly turned white as the ear-splitting roar of eight shells going off almost all at once nearly burned out the speakers and made many listeners wince. Some of the American shipgirls instantly equated that noise to an M134 Minigun firing right beside their ears; one had to have very well-honed hearing to pick out the individual detonations of those Mark XLVI shells as supercharged magical balls of mesonium slammed into cores of denser forms of the transuranic element often known to magicals and mystics worldwide as "the Atom of the Mind and Soul", creating burning waves of energy that tore into the soil with the power of a thousand tsunami hitting a city all at once.
The airport princess that had based herself there was instantly annihilated by such terrible fury, her body crushed without giving her any chance to send out a call for help. So arrogant she had been in establishing herself far from the trade routes, she never considered being attacked by anyone...and not by any of the Leviathan Killers, to say anything of TWO of those murderous ghosts of the high seas no Abyssal had been able to track down since they all commenced general operations years ago. As her soul was shattered into metaphysical bits to be flung to the ends of the Universe without even any sort of death cry to alert others that Tinian was lost, released mesonium atoms from Carolina's and Lady Jane's shells burrowed into the soil, pumping waves of rejuvenating energy to purge the poison seeping into the dirt and bedrock of Tinian. As the last of the deathly plague that had sucked away the ambient magic of the island was exorcised from the island, fields of renewing energy spread out from the impact points to energize the seared grass, making the vegetation regrow itself.
By one minute after impact, the hellish fires that burned half of Tinian down extinguished, leaving behind a moonscape that totally blackened the whole island north of the line of 42nd Street near the former West Airfield. As Prinz Eugen and Sakawa wept at such horrible power that had to be unleashed by two Canadian shipgirls — which struck them as horribly wrong; Canadians were always seen as a people dedicated to the pursuit of peace and harmony, even in the face of the threat of weapons of mass destruction — a cry from Inazuma made people gaze at the childish destroyer. "The grass is growing, nanodesu!"
Awed cries of delight filled the mess hall as tendrils of luscious green seemed to surge north from the still intact part of Tinian, totally consuming what remained of the island's international airport and the streets and worn airport runways that had pot-marked the land for seven decades. As that happened, a freshening wind then flowed over the island from the northwest, scattering the ashes of the airport princess and her installation out to sea. The cries of the watching shipgirls turned to wild cheers as the foundation of the North Airfield totally disappeared under a new blanket of lush green, forever erasing the mark of that dark part of World War Two from the wa of the island.
«Wait!»
Everyone gasped. "Atago-san?!" Fubuki called out.
«What is it, Atago?» Lady Jane asked.
«My spotter plane just picked up something near the docks in San Jose!»
«Vectoring in a Cyclone to investigate!» the battleship advised.
«I'm aiming my port guns to bear and closing range!» Carolina advised.
«Understood...!»
San Jose on Tinian, a half-hour later...
"Bad noise..."
Shaking her head as her mind echoed from that unearthly roar that had nearly deafened her thirty minutes ago, Hattie grunted as she got up from the bed she had been borrowing at the Mietetsu Fleming Hotel just off 8th Avenue. Shaking her head, the childish Abyssal who had first woken after the attack on New York City three years ago then looked out the window. There was a lot of smoke to the north, but no other sign that something bad had happened. "Attack...?"
"Hattie, what noise?"
Hattie blinked, then gazed at the doorway as Hiroko walked in. While both Abyssals looked pretty much alike, the one from New York City had two grey scars on her torso, one near her neck on the left collar and the other at the level of her floating ribs on the right side. The latter was easily identified by the beautiful orizuru she always carried on her person; Hiroko had the power to animate the folded pieces of paper and let them fly around to scan the area close to her. The American Abyssal shook her head. "Don't know. Bad noise."
Hiroko nodded. It had taken her and Nagako months to fully understand their sister from America, but the living spirits of the dead children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from August of 1945 could now carry on a decent conversation with Hattie in the broken Japanese they were able to teach her, not to mention the basic form of Abyssal. "Hai, bad noise," she said. "Like bright day..."
Hattie nodded in understanding. She remembered through the spirits of children killed three years ago how bright and clear it was on Tuesday 11 September 2001 when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Centre, killing thousands because of America's selfish policies concerning the Middle East and how that aroused the fury of fundamentalist Islamic fanatics to strike back in a way that hurt the United States as much as Pearl Harbour did decades earlier. Of course, the number of dead on 9/11 was a mere tithe of what had been unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, but the feelings of pain, bewilderment, horror, agony and the hollow sense of loss because so many adults had been killed without any real understanding as to the "why" had been enough to see them born and evolve the same way no matter the time or the reason. It hadn't evolved to the point where they had become stupid grown-ups and started hurting people like other Abyssals had in the previous decade; neither Hattie, Hiroko nor Nagako wanted to be like that. While it was nice to know the fundamentalists from Arabia and elsewhere were in abject poverty thanks to the Abyssals cutting off their oil exports via the Persian Gulf, the three child Abyssals wouldn't think of doing what their "big sister" on the North Airfield planned to do to Japan...
"Gyro!"
That was Nagako; to tell the three apart, metal tags had been made with their names etched in Latin script and in kanji/katakana. The wide-eyed Abyssal was waving her hands frantically as she pointed south towards the harbour. "What gyro, Nagako?" Hiroko asked in confusion as Hattie looked out the window.
"Helo!"
The Japanese-descent Abyssals blinked, then walked over to look out the north window to see a grey machine hovering nearby, its blades whirling as the faerie pilots stared out the cockpit window at them. "Canuck!" Hattie said as she spotted the low visibility roundel with the maple leaf on the hull, not to mention the national flag of the Dominion on the helicopter's tail. "Canuck!"
"Which room, Jane-san?!" a voice shouted from the hallway.
"Third floor! Sixth room from the port end!" a voice echoed from outside.
Nagako blinked, then cheered. "Kanmusu!"
Loud footfalls echoed through the hallway as the Abyssals turned just as a busty blonde shipgirl with blue eyes appeared, smartly dressed in a medium-blue greatcoat with underlying black bloomers, dark opaque thigh-high stockings and a white ruffled button shirt with bow tie, her head partially covered by a very cute beret. "Pan-paka-pān!" she cheered as she threw her arms into the air in celebration, making Hiroko and Nagako whoop in turn as they echoed the shipgirl's movements while Hattie blinked in confusion at such weirdness.
Japanese. Go figure...
"Did you find them, Miss Atago?!" the voice called from outside.
"Hai, Jane-san, I did!" Atago declared as she leaned down to gaze intently at them...then she blinked as her eyes locked on the names mounted to the brass plates on their collars. "'Hiroko'? 'Nagako'? Are those your names?"
"Hai!" Hiroko answered, then she pointed at the cruiser. "Atata!"
Atako jerked, then she blushed as she remembered that Hoppō called her the same thing. "Who Canada?" Nagako then asked as she pointed to the hovering Cyclone, who was still in the air and visible from the window of Hattie's room.
"One of the Ryūseizen!" Atago said as the louder footsteps of a battleship approaching the room echoed from the hallway beyond.
That made all three Abyssals turn ash grey. "SCARY SHIP!" Hattie screamed out before she dived under the bed, said bed then rattling loud.
"Not scary!" the cruiser assured, making Hiroko and Nagako blink and Hattie stop shaking. "Jane-san and Carol-san made the bad stuff go away!"
That made the child spirits blink. "Hime gone?" Nagako asked.
"Hai! Carol-san and Jane-san had the right stuff to make the bad hime go away! Now the bombers will never fly! Pan-paka-pān!"
That made Hiroko and Nagako blink, then both cheered before the former placed her hands together. She then pulled them apart, making a fluttering orizuru appear, it done in red. Atago gaped on seeing that...then her eyes widened in horror as she recalled the last time she saw something like that. When she had been part of a detail sent by Saitō Ten'ichi to escort the American kanmusu who had been summoned to Eta-jima one day in August so they could lay a wreath at the Memorial Cenotaph in the Peace Memorial Park and meet what few hibakusha were still alive. Atago smiled as she recalled that event happened right after the shipgirls of Taffy Three were summoned. At the ceremony, old grandmothers gladly adopted the cute destroyers and destroyer escorts — naturally, they had dressed in United States Navy full dress white uniforms for the occasion, rank insignia and medals from World War Two glittering in the sun — as honorary members of their families while the escort carriers of the group had their air groups fly missing man formations over the park in salute to the dead.
"Canuck!"
Hiroko and Nagako blinked, then turned as a very tall shipgirl appeared behind Atago, nearly colliding with the cruiser's stern as she gazed on the child Abyssals there. "The children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," she quickly noted on seeing the names on the two Japanese-born child spirits' collars, then she focused on the American-born one now standing up. "Who are you, then...?"
«Why hurt?!»
That was Hoppō, who had seen the scars on Hattie's body from the mess hall at Eta-jima. "She's not hurt, Miss Hoppō," Lady Jane said as she knelt before Hattie, quickly spotting her name. "'Hattie'? As in Manhattan?"
Hattie blinked, then nodded. The battleship then pointed to the scar by the child's collar. "One World Trade Centre," she quietly said before pointing to the other scar. "Two World Trade Centre," she added, shaking her head.
"The 9/11 attacks, Miss Jane?!"
That was O'Bannon, who had just come up to look on in things. "Obviously so, given her name," Jane said as she stood up. "You want to walk her out?"
"Aye, ma'am!"
"Banny...?"
That was Hattie, who had walked over to stare intently at the just-arrived Fletcher-class destroyer. As the adopted Virginian/Kentuckian blinked in confusion, both Hiroko and Nagako looked at her. "Banny...?" the former then wondered before she giggled. "Imo no Onna!" she then called out.
Nagako snickered. "Imo no Onna!"
Both child-spirits began to chant away as they danced around a confused O'Bannon. "Imo no Onna! Imo no Onna! Imo no Onna! Imo no Onna...!"
As Atago laughed, Jane shook her head. "Um, Miss Jane, what are they calling me?" the most-decorated American destroyer of World War Two asked as she gazed at the battleship. Even if she had been deploying from Eta-jima since she was summoned, she still had issues understanding the language. She was lucky that all the Japanese kanmusu spoke English due to the heavy influence of the Royal Navy on the Imperial Navy as the latter service sought to establish itself.
"'Potato Girl'," Jane and Atago translated together.
That made O'Bannon blink before she sighed, shaking her head. «Suck it up, Banny!» Johnston then heckled from the mess hall at Eta-jima.
«Go for Jane.»
Jane perked. She didn't recognize the voice even if the identification code that had been flashed with the message marked him as friendly. Thank God for Commander Caldwell and his friends at Dundurn, she mused; the encryption codes for the system the First Canadian Battleship Squadron used while in the field was as secure as all the gold stored in Fort Knox. "Who's this?!"
«Garb Heavy Four, ma'am,» the voice replied. «Support flight from Seventeen Det, sent compliments of Ladyhawke and Dragon Lord. Since your team found at least a half-dozen kids like the three you're with now, we were ordered to fly you to Inlet Island. We'll come down with four at Isley Field in thirty.»
Hearing that, Jane nodded. "Understood. We'll be there in an hour."
«Roger that, ma'am.»
Both Atago and O'Bannon looked sick. "Flying...?!" the cruiser eeped.
«And miss all the poutine being served at the mess today, Atago-san?»
Hearing that from Fubuki, O'Bannon whooped. "Okay! Let's go!"
With that, she picked up a cheering Hattie, then raced out of the room...
Eta-jima, the mess hall...
"My, I never thought that poutine would be so popular here in Japan."
Hearing that cutely accented voice, the members of the Kidō Butai, their German friend and the three Yorktown-class carriers all perked, then turned...
...to see a slender girl a couple inches shorter than either Sōryū or Hiryū now standing there. She was dressed in the standard blue-grey bodysuit marking her as a member of the Royal Canadian Navy, pendant 22 written on her upper thighs, her top covered by a naval combat jacket. She had navy captain's stripes on her epaulette slip-ons; like shipgirls and shipboys elsewhere, the rank was honorary for pay purposes. She had well-styled rust red hair in a left-side asymmetric cut flowing into a ponytail draped over her shoulder. Blue eyes peeked out of a weathered face. Her ship's crest was displayed on her right arm, her name on the tape over the right pocket. "Bonaventure-san," Kaga greeted the second of the Majestic-class light fleet carriers who sailed for Canada between World War Two and Unification. "Welcome to Eta-jima."
"Je vous remercie de votre accueil, Mademoiselle Kaga," the light fleet carrier bowed her head in thanks, then nodded her thanks as Zuikaku stood up to offer her a chair. "Merci beaucoup, Mademoiselle Zuikaku," she said in thanks as she sat, then took a deep breath. "My, that was a long flight from Greenwood," she then said in accented English as she slipped off her black beret.
"Were you just summoned, Frau Bonaventure?" Graf Zeppelin asked.
"About two weeks ago, along with all the Saint-Laurent-class, the Restigouche-class, the Mackenzie-class and the Annapolis-class. And adopted of same."
"'Adopted of same'?" Kaga asked in confusion as she tried not to roll her eyes while Akagi continued to rapidly gulp down her fifth plate of poutine.
"Oui. Back in World War Two, we got several of the Wickes-class and Clemson-class destroyers in the deal President Roosevelt made with Prime Minister Churchill to get bases in Newfoundland to press the Battle of the Atlantic against the Nazis," the Canadian carrier explained. "Niagara, Saint Francis, Saint Clair, Hamilton and Buxton weren't reborn among the various River-class steamers built in the 1950s and the 1960s. But they answered the call to arms when Admiral Harlan sounded action stations at Cornwallis. They were reborn as Restigouche-class and Mackenzie-class ships. Modernized, of course."
"How modernized?" Yonaga asked.
"Well, RIM-162 Enhanced Sea Sparrows in Mark 29 launchers carried astride their funnels and in the old Limbo mortal wells, Mademoiselle Yonaga," Bonaventure said. "Phalanx Mark 15 CIWS for close-in defence, not to mention Bushmaster Typhoon Weapons System chain guns. One OTO-Melera 76 millimetre 62 calibre compact gun forward; the Mackenzie-class carry a second mount aft. Except for Ottawa; she was refitted with a Mark 13 launcher in lieu of her main gun."
Yorktown snickered. "One-armed bandit...!"
"Do not be so derisive," Yonaga stated. "The Mark 13 may be limited in load in comparison to the Mark 41, but it is versatile. Tell us, Bonaventure-san, did the Saint-Laurent-class and Annapolis-class come as helicopter destroyers?"
"Oui. They can carry one CH-148 Cyclone each."
"Do their crews drink dwarf rotgut?"
That was Enterprise, who had a wary look on her face; the most decorated ship in the history of the United States Navy had got a sobering draught from Heather Thompkins as soon as she returned to Eta-jima during the lead-up to the incident at Tinian concerning Lady Jane and Carolina. "Non, Mademoiselle Enterprise, not unlike the pilots for our battleship cousins," Bonaventure noted with a shake of her head, then she gazed in amazement at Chennalton, who was now chatting with a flock of destroyers. "Amazing we did that..."
"You guys had the War Hawks, Bonnie," Hornet noted. "After that, having battleships in a magical squadron to hunt down leviathans seems tame!"
The Canadian carrier considered that, then she smiled. "Oui, that's true."
"What do you have for archery gear?" Hiryū asked; Bonaventure's sister carriers Magnificent and Warrior had both come to Eta-jima after they were summoned to learn the tricks of the trade from the Kidō Butai before assuming their roles as primary Canadian aviation ships for the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets.
"I'm getting used to a yeoman's bow, but I am willing to learn both modern and traditional styles," Bonaventure assured her, then she perked. "Nova!"
"Hey!" a grinning red-haired destroyer called out as she came over, escorting the world's most famous passenger liner, both having trays of food in hand.
"Here's to a sister from Belfast," Titanic said as she placed the steaming pile of poutine on the table before Bonaventure. "And a better named one, too!"
Bonaventure laughed as she allowed the touch of an Irish burr to enter her voice. "Appreciated, Madame Titanic," she said with a nod of thanks.
"Always!"
As Titanic headed off, Terra Nova plopped herself down, then picked up her fork to begin nibbling her own poutine. "Rough flight in?" Hornet asked.
"Nah!" the adopted Newfoundlander breathed out as her blue eyes sparkled in amusement. She was slender yet wiry in build, her pendant 259 written on her upper thighs. "Some of the DDHs found it rough flying from Greenwood, but it was okay to me! No worse than Sea State Six on the Banks; remember sailing through that when I was doing sovereignty patrols to keep fish poachers away!"
"Not to mention help out in the Persian Gulf War," Enterprise noted. "What news about the Tribals? That'll be your last big class of ships to bring back."
"They're all back. Came through at a setup Admiral Harlan's great-granddad had built in Tadoussac since all the ships of that class were shared between us, the Brits and the Aussies in the war. Now it's us, the Brits, the Aussies, the Kiwis, the Indians and the South Africans given where all the names come from. They're all seconded to CANBATRON ONE now to help them investigate where all the Abyssals come from so we can nuke the damned things once and for all!"
"With proper weapons refits, I hope," Yonaga mused.
Terra Nova snorted. "What other way should they come back?!"
"Nova!" Bonaventure instantly scolded. "It's not their fault that they couldn't get modern weapons outfits because they haven't had the time to modernize the summoning chamber here! Don't look down on them like that!"
The destroyer winced, then she sighed. "Yeah! Sorry about that!" She then hummed. "Still, it'll be easy to do refits to some people right now."
That made all the carriers perk. "How so?" Zeppelin asked.
"Well, you all need angled decks. Never mind that Akagi and Hiryū both have to get their islands put on the starboard side," Nova stated. "Not to mention getting the decks hardened to start taking jet fighters and proper ASW birds! Bonnie fires Trackers, Banshees and Cyclones out of her C1A1...!"
"What's that?" Zuikaku asked. Oh, Kami-sama! Another gun nut...?!
Bonaventure smirked. "You'll probably have heard of it by its common nickname, Mademoiselle Zuikaku," she stated. "'The Right Arm of the Free World'."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"You're using an FAL?!" Enterprise demanded as the Japanese carriers blinked.
"Oui! With it, I can put up my whole air group in minutes," the Canadian light carrier mused. "It surprised me that you didn't switch to an M14 when you began using a rifle to launch your aircraft in lieu of a combat bow."
Hornet sighed. "We're still trying to get Lex and Sara to use an M1...!"
"AH! It's a helicopter!"
Everyone jolted on hearing Kisaragi's shout, then turned...
...before Terra Nova moaned. "Damn it, you stupid trawler mauler! What the hell are you doing flying your Cyclone inside the mess hall?!"
People instantly focused on the last of Canada's Cold War-era destroyer escorts. Nipigon, a girl with the same type of body build as Terra Nova though she had gold-flecked red hair in a pageboy cut and blue eyes with pendant 266 on her legs, was standing in a clear space between tables, her sea rigging out. Such included a flight deck and hangar for her helicopter stuffed between her twin funnels. Flying near the rafters as Hedwig hovered close, a faerie-piloted CH-148 was moving to position itself over the green landing deck with NN in white at the aft end. As destroyers gasped on seeing the Canadian ship move to take on such a large machine, the Cyclone suddenly bucked as one of its engines flamed out. Nipigon hissed out on seeing that. "Oh, shit...!"
"I got it, nanodesu!"
Everyone watched in shock as Inazuma raced over to position herself right under the faltering helicopter, summoning her full sea rigging, which included her two aft turrets with their twin 10 centimetre 65 calibre Type 98 dual-purpose cannon. Seeing that, the Cyclone's pilot instantly moved to poise himself over the destroyer's "X" turret, then dropped his machine down to make a belly landing on the gun house roof; the landing gear wasn't spaced properly enough to make a proper touchdown. As the other destroyers whooped in delight at such a rescue manoeuvre, a certain police commissioner then cleared his throat. "Miss Nipigon!" Martin Larsden then barked out. "What on Earth are you doing carrying out flight operations inside a building of all places?!"
Nipigon jerked as the man-hunter's stormy grey eyes locked in on her as if they were peering through the scope of his sniper rifle. "Um, s-s-sorry about that, Commissioner!" the adopted Ontarian sputtered out. "We heard of that incident where Mister Moroboshi had to use that lightsabre of his to kill an abyssal to protect Kirishima and her sisters, so I put my Cyclone up to do sweeps of the area around the island. We have to cross those two bridges on Highway 487 to get onto Kurahashi-jima from the mainland, then Eta-jima from Kurahashi-jima."
Hearing that, Martin nodded as several local officers came his way. "A wise thing. Just remember to land your helicopter OUTSIDE a building from now on!"
Nipigon winced. "Aye-aye, sir..."
"Still, Martin-san, you have to admit, that was a splendid recovery by Inazuma-san, wouldn't you agree?" a strange voice then hailed.
Inazuma turned...
...then she gasped on seeing the smiling destroyer captain — now rear admiral — standing there along with members of his old command's senior staff. "Indeed it was, Saburō," Martin stated before gazing on Inazuma. "Well done."
Inazuma flustered. "Nanodesu...!"
Laughter filled the room as Mutsu came over. "Teitoku, welcome to Eta-jima," the battleship said as she bowed to Umezu Saburō. "Forgive my sister..."
"Do not apologize, Mutsu-san," the former captain of the Mirai stated as he politely saluted her. "I'm aware of your sister's issues with young ones like Hoppō-chan. I see she's now got many sisters of her own to care for."
Eyes looked over to one corner of the room, where a delirious Nagato was now gaping at the gathering of sheer cuteness as Hoppō and her new sisters gladly ate the piles of poutine and other good food prepared for them. Seated beside her was Saratoga, who was shaking her head at her girlfriend's antics. "Kami-sama, I thought it was all a joke when it came to her," Saburō's former combat officer, Captain Kikuchi Masayuki, noted as he gazed on his old co-workers.
"Given what she went through at Crossroads, it's understandable," the former first officer of the Mirai and Saburō's current flag captain, Kadomatsu Yōsuke, then stated before he gazed on Inazuma, who was now waiting for the Cyclone to shut down its engines so Nipigon could take the helicopter off. "Tell me, Inazuma-chan. Your pendant number was DD-6 back before the war, right?"
Inazuma blinked, then readily nodded. "Nanodesu, Kadomatsu-taisa!"
"Well, now you can designate yourself DDH-6!" Saburō then teased.
That made the childish destroyer gape. "Helicopter destroyer...?" she began before she shuddered, though she stopped herself from waving her arms around to prevent the Cyclone from slipping off her rigging. "But I'm not designed like Nipigon-san was, nanodesu!" she protested. "I don't want to land guns and torpedoes! I can't fight the meanie-meanies that way, nanodesu...!"
"Who says you can't fight with modern stuff?"
People blinked as Terra Nova walked up. "How would you modify her, Nova-san?" Mirai's former navigation officer, Captain Oguri Kōhei, asked.
"First thing, Captain, we land all the guns!" the Canadian destroyer stated, which made Inazuma yelp. "Relax, Ina-chan!" she playfully scolded, making the Japanese destroyer blush at being called such a cute nickname. "Those Type 98s were a good design and you can cook off 126 rounds a minute when you're doing full broadsides, but you've got two turrets aft. You have to unshroud them to fire broadsides if you're coming on your target head on. You can only cook off 42 rounds a minute if you hit head-on! We drop all of them and put an OTO-Melera 76 compact at your 'A' turret, you'll have 85 rounds a minute on auto-fire. If we shift your superstructure aft to put a 'B' turret on your 02 level, that's 170 rounds you're putting downrange to get rid of the bullies! Or even better, give you a Mark 41 VLS system there to launch missiles!"
"That'll let you clear the aft end to put a hangar deck for an SH-60K Seahawk that could carry Mark 46 torpedoes over the horizon," Nipigon added.
"She's gotta land the Long Lance launchers," Nova then warned. "They got great range, but those things are accidents just waiting to happen."
"Mark 32 tubes would do her perfectly. She could easily take four mounts and it gives her the ability to fire Mark 46 ADCAP torpedoes."
Inazuma gasped. "Twelve torpedo tubes...?"
"And ESSM, a Phalanx and Typhoon Bushmasters..." Nova noted.
"Always that," Nipigon affirmed with a nod.
Before the fourth of the Akatsuki-class could say anything in response to that, a moan caused people to gaze over at one table, where a certain baby carrier had been busy eating the nice cake one of the Ryūseizen had made for her. As the others watched, Katsuragi swayed. "Ragisuke...no feel good...!"
Her whole body then exploded in energy, causing everyone to scream out!
"RAGISUKE!" Hoppō cried out in horror...
...before the light faded to reveal Katsuragi, now restored to her normal teenage body, a surprised and confused look on the carrier's face. As the others in the room gasped on hearing that, Katsuragi blinked. "Um...did something happen...?" she asked as she looked around the mess hall.
Jaws dropped in shock...then people perked on hearing Hoppō sniff before she started to cry. As Hōshō went over to the child Abyssal's side and her new sisters moved to add comfort, Hoppō sobbed, "Hoppō want Ragisuke back...!"
Martin shook his head as the visitors from the Mirai all blinked...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
1) The "sex-crazed idiot" interpretation of Ataru's name is from The Senior Year; this was something Mike Smith and I came up with to explain why was it that Lum pretty much refused to address him by name.
As an aside, Nassur and his wife Cinba were two of Mike's creations in The Senior Year. As in Phoenix From the Ashes, Cinba survived the shuttle accident six years ago shown in the flashback scene of the TSY story "Final Cinba". Also, Moroboshi Kaeru first appeared in the TSY story "My Darlings United". He was created to help better explain why Ataru's parents were borderline abusive to him over the years; even if Ataru's behaviour in Urusei Yatsura was inexcusable in the long term, her parents' selfishness (as witness his mother's "I wish I never had him" tirades) factored a lot into that situation.
2) Translation list: Ch'enghap'i — Vulture; Ch'uokyek — Spirit-dragon; Keishi — Commissioner; Verzeihen Sie mir, alter Freund — Forgive me, old friend; CAP — Combat Air Patrol; Rheinübung — Rhine Exercise; Wa — Peace/harmony; Orizuru — Literally "folded crane", this is a popular type of origami ("folded paper") hand sculpture that is shaped like a crane bird; Hibakusha — Literally "explosion-affected people", this is the term for survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings; Je vous remercie de votre accueil — I thank you for your welcome; FAL — Short for Fusil Automatique Léger ("Light Automatic Rifle"), the official name of Fabrique Nationale's primary battle rifle design from the 1950s.
3) The Academician and Infinity are two of my Yizibajohei (pronounced /yɪ-zi-bɑː-woʊ-heɪ/) characters. As I've explained elsewhere, the Yizibajohei are a take-off of the Levramites from Jim Valentino's normalman parody comics from the 1980s. The Academician is the smartest person on Yiziba, with a hyper-inventive capability which puts her heads-and-shoulders above other geniuses in the known Universe. Infinity (also known as the "God[dess] Who Walks Among Men" depending on gender) is the ultimate-reality warper; I base her/him on the character of Captain Everything from normalman. Since the Anime Addventure website is now most likely permanently down (this is where I trialled the initial versions of the Yizibajohei, always within "The Doctor Is In" storyline for those who have access to backup files), you can see versions of both these characters in The Saga of Coyote and the Tempest and Manacled Dominatrix.
As an aside, the Dawn of Power was the time in Yizibajohei history when all the natives became metahumans, which transformed the planet into a place where only the bravest "norm" (non-metahuman) or "same" (person who shares a singular metahuman power with members of her/his own birth race) would dare tread. The Dawn of Power happened around the time of the birth of Christ on Earth.
4) Naval Weapons Technicians (NW TECHs) were the Royal Canadian Navy's version of United States Navy gunner's mates; it fell onto them to maintain and help operate weapons systems on a warship. In recent years, the combat technical trades in the RCN were merged together as one "super-trade" known as Weapons Engineering Technicians (WENG TECHs). People in this trade learn all combat systems on a warship after basic training, then elect to pursue expertise in specific types of equipment (weapons, sensors, sonars, fire control systems and communications systems) after they advance into journeyman training; this normally happens when one becomes a Leading Seaman (LS) (NATO rank code OR-4).
5) The CC-177 is the Canadian designation for the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.
6) The Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry (RCCAC) is my own creation; the idea of a Canadian Army tactical aviation service never existed in real life even if the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps (RCASC) created a helicopter transport platoon for group troop support and regiments of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (RCAC) made use of helicopter observation troops in the years before Unification in 1968. The Corps of Air Cavalry — one NEVER says "Air Cavalry Corps"! — is Dean Raeburn's home administrative service. Information about the Corps of Air Cavalry is available in The Air Cavalry Regiments of Canada, an information file at the FictionPress website under my writer's name.
As an aside, the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own) (RCAC) is a reserve armoured regiment based out of Vancouver in British Columbia.
7) A Warrant Officer Class I (WO1) is the pre-1968 Canadian Army title for the highest non-commissioned member rank; such a rank still exists in the British Army. In the wake of Unification, such people came to be addressed as Chief Warrant Officers (CWO); the symbol of the rank is the 1957 version of Canada's national coat of arms. A CWO is seen as having the NATO rank code of OR-9.
8) Beyond Hogwarts, the terms OWL (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) and NEWT (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test) wouldn't translate well given the vast differences between the magical traditions of various nations. In my stories, I devised a simpler system to identify the two main testing levels when speaking of the alumni of another school such as Ilvermorny. For OWL-level students, the term often used is Graduates Class. For NEWT-level students, they would be known as Masters Class (or Mistresses Class if referring to a woman).
9) BlackBerry is one of the first true smartphones; the first models came out in 1996. The company that created these devices was originally called Research In Motion; the corporate name was changed to "BlackBerry Ltd" in 2013.
10) To explain the conversation between a certain Canadian aircraft carrier and a British passenger liner in the last scene in this part: HMCS Bonaventure (CVL-22) was originally built as HMS Powerful at Harland and Wolff in Belfast between 1943-57, where RMS Titanic and her sisters were built three decades earlier. To explain the long time it took to finish building the carrier, Powerful's construction was stopped in 1945 thanks to World War Two ending, but was started up again in 1952 after Canada acquired her to become Bonaventure. The shipgirl Bonaventure speaks with a Québécoise French accent reflective of her namesake island/bird sanctuary off the Gaspé Peninsula, with the faintest hint of an Ulster Irish burr...though she can exaggerate it when she wants.
