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Eta-jima, the carrier practice range, mid-afternoon...
"Teitoku, welcome to the practice range."
"Dōmo, Miss Akagi," Heather Thompkins stated with a nod as she gazed on the archery range located on the western slopes of Hisako-yama overlooking the southern reaches of Etajima-wan near the harbour village of Washibe south of the main base property. Since the whole island had been pretty much abandoned when the Abyssals first began attacking en masse, the Kure Naval District had taken over Eta-jima for its own use. While much of the urban area was still wrecked and in need of either repair or demolition, the kanmusu who lived here didn't mind it; it gave them a vast space to practice all their skills without running the risk of an innocent bystander being hurt along the way.
Beside the commander-in-chief of the shipgirls, the newly-appointed director of the Kanmusu-keikaku nodded in appreciation at the rustic archery range that had been established for aircraft carriers. Accompanying the former captain of the Mirai were his senior staff. "I'm sure if Kusaka-san was still with us, he'd approve of all the hard training you girls do," Umezu Saburō noted.
That made the carriers blush. "If Kusaka-shōsa could accept the concept of kanmusu in the first place, Teitoku," Kaga dryly noted as she adjusted her clothing to prepare for a hard couple hours of work to recover from the many shocks she had endured earlier in the day. She was personally looking forward to some good practice. While it pleased her greatly to note that her long-time working companion was now at peak operational capacity thanks to the largess of magical farmers from Canada and the incredible Ryūseizen, it had been quite embarrassing to see Akagi lose all sense of self-discipline when confronted with piles and piles of fresh poutine, with the succulent promise of maple syrup for pancakes the base culinary staff were going to make tomorrow; Akagi got hooked on the condiment when the Canadian frigate Capilano brought a bottle of the stuff after making a successful escort run to Japan a year ago.
The other carriers chuckled as they continued preparations for the afternoon's practice while the naval officers moved to take seats at the back wall of the training hall, where archers would stand to practice with their daikyū at the targets thirty metres downrange. Off to the port of the platform was the open air range, which is where carriers practised shooting enchanted arrows or bullets that put aloft aircraft from their air groups. "It's a pity Mirai was first in name," Sōryū noted as she looked over her daikyū to ensure the string was properly taunt. "We could use a kanmusu with that type of experience."
"Given what the Canadians have discovered over the last three years, that might have been quite some help for all of us," Enterprise mused.
Eyes locked on America's legendary "grey ghost" of the Second World War. Out of simple respect for their hosts and their own traditions, the American carriers always dressed in proper clothing for kyūdō-ka while practising at this range, protective plates bearing the first kana of their names as they would be read in Japanese. The second of the Yorktown-class was now scowling at her iPad; she was usually one of the early ones to finish preparing herself for practice. "What's bothering you, Enterprise-san?" Shōkaku asked.
"It's the data Chennalton and her friends have gathered to locate the source points for Abyssals," the American carrier mused. "They've compared it to what their crews detected in both world wars and in the brief times after the wars they did checks of their battle sites before going into Class 'A' reserve to wait for the next go-around. They tried to make connections between those readings and where fleet battles and areas where mass numbers of ships have been sunk, but there's no connection here. Nothing makes any sense, Shōkaku."
"Let me see," Heather stated.
The iPad was handed over. Scanning the map of the world there, the Canadian admiral was quick to note the different notations. A tap of the screen at any particular location brought up an informational window listing the historical "normal" battle during the world wars that occurred, plus what corresponding action ships of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron carried out to block proto-Abyssals from turning an already horrible situation into a potential massacre of humans that were in range of such beings. Also marked on the map were the exact locations where those creatures were destroyed in comparison to where normal warships or civilian craft had been sunk, such done with pinpoint accuracy; magical gyroscopes and other navigational aides aboard ships like Chennalton were as accurate as modern-day GPS satellites. However, after tapping controls to read on post-action reports and area analysis done back in those days and in the last three years, there was next to nothing that could be a red flag to indicate where such creatures could have first gestated before they swarmed forth to unleash destruction. Everything possible had been looked into: Known areas of mesonium deposits from the many times meteors composed of the Atom of True Life crashed into Earth over the last three billion years, hot spots of dark magic on neighbouring landmasses, water currents, the few times metahuman battles in the Second World War spilled close to the oceans...!
Nothing.
"I can see why this is so frustrating," Heather breathed out.
"Is this all the information we could access?" Kadomatsu Yōsuke asked; the officers of the Mirai's old command team had looked over her shoulders.
"Don't know. But I am going to lean down on Ed Stewart and Sam Quahog to get their magical investigators to pour through all the records on known magical sea incidents and have them added to this map," the admiral noted. "I can get Albus Dumbledore to do the same at the ICW to get everyone else involved; I can certainly guarantee that Svetlána Múromeca and Yomigawa Tsukiko could get the old Russian and Japanese archives opened up to access what's there."
"Why wasn't this done earlier?" Oguri Kōhei then wondered.
"The price all of humanity has had to pay for the inbred paranoia we all possess when it comes to confronting what is not normal, Captain," Heather stated. "This all stems from the Statute of Secrecy and how paranoid magicals are when it comes to keeping such a secret from normal people. Besides, given how gradual Abyssals attacks were in the years leading up to the first big mass battles, the response was well-contained even if the continued application of memory-erasing spells on people hit multiple times simply made them useless in the long term." She shook her head. "We should have been called into this far sooner. If magical ministries were hell-bent on keeping things secret, they needed to better coordinate things." She sighed. "Then again, no one ever listens to Canada. We're too radical even for liberal magical societies."
"Why is that, Teitoku?!" Hiryū asked. "Harlan-teitoku saw the threat right away as soon as the native Canadian seers and precognitives predicted things in 1910, then had Sunbeam-san and Sundown-san built to try to stop it. When it grew too big for them to handle, that's when Erinsville-san, Carolina-san, Lady Elgin-san and Lady Jane-san were built. They contained it beautifully, plus honoured requirements forced by the Statute to keep things secret from normal people. The same thing happened when Argo-san and Chennalton-san came into commission. The Foresters helped keep the war you were involved in contained, plus helped put an end to what Grindelwald-daijin was doing and helped liberate all of Asia and Africa alongside Yomigawa-gensui! Where was the problem?"
"Because they were top-of-the-line battleships and could easily work perfectly in a normal environment if the Fates ended up forcing that on Bill Harlan and his crews, Miss Hiryū," Heather answered as she gave Enterprise her tablet back. "It's typical contempt for 'muggle' things in the eyes of most magicals. Many still think — and are often encouraged to think! — that normal people use horse-drawn buggies to travel to other places, have gaslight to illuminate their streets, have no clue about modern illnesses since we still use leeches to vent diseases from the body and use muzzle-loading muskets for weapons."
The shipgirls all gaped at her. "You're joking!" Lexington stated.
"I'm not, Miss Lexington," Heather stated. "When I was Supreme Mugwump in the 1950s and 1960s, I tried to force through an update of knowledge concerning non-magical peoples worldwide at the various magical schools across the planet to ensure that if magicals had to go forth and work among the normals, they'd know what was going on and not stick out. After all, many magicals aren't simply ready to have the Statute's many protections ripped away from them. Japan was quite receptive about that, as were the Koreas, China and all of east and south Asia. So were the Americas and the nations of Oceania. The Soviet Union and their client states had done it since before the war. Ditto with Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain. But could you get Britain, France and the other nations of Europe to go along with it?" She shook her head. "Not a chance in the world. And it was still too soon after Gellert's move to wreck the ICW for the rest of the world to stop bowing to Europe all the time."
"It has changed, I hope," Saratoga stated as Nagato helped adjust her gi.
"Thanks to our opponents," the master sorceress from Québec City said. "As soon as the full scale of the threat finally sank into people around the world, magical ministries on all the island nations or nations with large islands like Madagascar, Greece, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia tossed out the 'ensure no one learns the secret' policy and began to coordinate everything with local defence agencies to save lives and repulse the Abyssals. They got censured by the ICW in Geneva, but there was nothing done; the attacks were just coming on too fast and all the complications were making people panic." She smiled. "Then Nagi's boy made his little discovery, which added a massive new wrinkle in this delightful little goulash we all have to deal with."
Akagi tensed on hearing one particular word, which made Kaga wince and the other carriers save Yonaga smirk. Fortunately, before the leader of the Kidō Butai could tumble into another daydream about consuming a massive vat of goulash, an amused chuckle made the shipgirls perk, then they turned as three people approached from the direction of the base. "At least it is a positive discovery in many ways, Heather-san," Konoe Konoemon stated before he nodded as all the shipgirls bowed to him. "Konnichi wa, ladies. Afternoon practice?"
"And introducing a new arrival to kyūdō, Konoe-kōchōsensei," Akagi stated. "Konnichi wa, Negi-san. Nodoka-san. How are things in Mahora?"
"Negi's still not getting enough sleep, Akagi-san," Miyazaki Nodoka said after she and Negi Springfield had bowed to their hosts. "Even now that we finally know the truth about the Ryūseizen! Hopefully, Harlan-taishō can finally find some ways to get you all modified and upgraded without Negi killing himself...!"
"Nodoka-san!" the teenage sorcerer from Wales moaned, his cheeks now a very bright cherry red. "I have a duty to all these people, remember?!"
"Not to the point of hurting yourself permanently, Negi."
Negi and Nodoka gasped on hearing that toneless voice, then both warily turned as Moroboshi Negako came up to join them, followed by a curious Harry Potter. On seeing the Boy Who Lived, the son of the Thousand Master smiled as he walked over, his hand out. "Harry Potter, I presume?" he asked, his eyes twinkling.
Harry blinked, then he chuckled. "I am. You are?"
"Negi Springfield, at your service."
That made the native of Somerset gape. "Any relation to Nagi Springfield?"
"My father."
"Ah!" Harry breathed out as he grasped the other wizard's hand. "My friend has told me about your father. Things some people have written about him..."
"Don't apologize, please," Negi said as they shook hands, then he waved the other wizard over to the bench where Heather and her companions were sitting. "I know how isolationist and arrogant the leaders of your part of magical Britain can be. Makes me grateful at times that we were excluded like we were when the Wizengamot passed that law in 1705 that blocked Meridiana graduates from working at the Ministry of Magic. They are an uptight lot, aren't they?"
Harry moaned. "Short-sighted and stupid! Too much blood politics!"
Negi laughed. "Oh, we'll get along famously, Harry...!"
"NEGI!"
The native of Wales and descendant of the blood of Ostia gasped...
...before he found himself buried by a sextet of escort carriers who charged out of the change room on sensing he was there. "Ladies...!" he moaned.
"Miss us?" White Plains asked from atop the pile.
The others staring at this blinked before they all laughed...
Within minutes, Bonaventure had emerged from the change room to begin her first lesson in traditional Japanese archery. Unlike the tall daikyū bows used by the larger carriers or the specially-sized hankyū universally chosen by the six escort carriers of Taffy 3, the Canadian light fleet carrier made use of an English longbow, a present to her from her sister Magnificent and half-sister Warrior. That had made the veterans of the Kidō Butai grin as they recalled teaching the two other Canadian light fleet carriers the fine art of kyūdō a year before, shortly after both answered the call to arms at Cornwallis. While a longbow wasn't as tall as even a hankyū, the principals of kyūdō could still apply to English archery weapons. Especially the meditative element; a carrier needed to remain as calm and as collected as possible to force her will on her pilots and ensure the mission could be carried out with little problems.
As the training progressed, Enterprise and Kaga watched the Canadian carrier work away under Sōryū's and Hiryū's personal tutelage while Akagi took charge of the training for White Plains and her sisters at the port side of the hall. Also there was Yonaga, though no one presumed to teach the seventh carrier given the sheer level of martial arts skill and power she spiritually inherited from her late crew. Lexington, Saratoga, Hornet and Yorktown were at the starboard end of the building with Shōkaku and Zuikaku. On the open launch range off way to their port and well clear from flying arrows, Harry and Negi were spending time comparing the syllabuses of Hogwarts and Meridiana, the pactio system the latter now shared with Nodoka to help enhance his magic and how to perform certain spells; Negako was there to lend her expertise in how magic and ki interacted with each other. The human naval staff remained quiet as they observed the carriers, seated off to one side of the two fleet carriers. "She's got the determination to learn," the Grey Ghost mused after Bonaventure landed her first bull's eye, earning her approving nods from Sōryū and Hiryū. "Can't understand why Essex loudly told me to avoid her."
That made the converted battleship gape; everyone had just learned that all of America's wartime carriers had come back to duty at Great Lakes a day before as the recruit base in Illinois got up to full steam in performing summonings to bring back the Union's massive World War Two fleet. "How rude! Just because Bonaventure-san doesn't have our flight deck dimensions doesn't mean we can't operate with her! We do it with Warrior-san, let alone the Casablancas!"
"Yeah! We got that same message," Gambier Bay noted from her spot. The adopted Alaskan shook her head before she moved to notch her next arrow. Relaxing herself, the silver-haired escort carrier — who looked way too small to be handling a hankyū! — took several deep breaths before she raised her bow, then lowered it to launch her shot. "Calling her 'Crazy Bonnie' and all that!"
She let loose her arrow, sending it right into the bull's eye. Everyone then perked on hearing an amused giggle escape the lone Canadian on the range. "Not so surprising, mademoiselle," Bonaventure stated as she relaxed herself. "I did an exercise with Mademoiselle Essex once. Her pilots thought mine were insane to launch and land planes as large as CP-121s and CF-102s from my decks."
"What are those? Don't recognize the models," White Plains complained.
That made the redhead blush. "Forgive me! The S2F Tracker and the F2H Banshee," she corrected herself. "Those were the fixed-wing aircraft assigned to my air group from when I was commissioned to when the Banshees were retired."
That made Hornet blink. "What's wrong with that? A Tracker is smaller than the Mitchells I carried for the Doolittle Raid! And the Banshee has the same wingspan as a Corsair! Your flight deck's only 120 feet shorter than mine!"
"You never had to land those B-25s, Happy," Enterprise reminded her younger sister. "Bonnie landed Trackers as a matter of routine."
"Could you show us?" Saint Lo asked.
Hearing that from the adopted native of Normandy in France and Washington state, Bonaventure paused before she gazed on Akagi. "Would you mind?"
The leader of the Kidō Butai blinked, then she nodded. "I'd like to see that myself." She then looked to the others. "Everyone stop!" she called out loud enough for all the other carriers to hear her. "We're moving to the launch range now! For those changing to firearms, please put away your bows!"
Everyone chanted their acknowledgement as people relaxed. The escort carriers all bowed in respect to the range before they scampered off to put away their hankyū and get their M1 Garand rifles, acting really no different than some of the emotionally younger destroyers like the Akatsuki sisters. Watching them, Yonaga nodded; while not as self-disciplined as she felt was proper, one had to be blind to not see the determination to carry through the fight burning in each of the "jeep" carriers' too-human hearts. "The 'Greatest Generation'," she mused aloud as Akagi moved to stand beside her. "Aptly named..."
"Indeed, Yamamoto-gensui understood all too well the cost of challenging such a nation," the leader of the Kidō Butai mused as Enterprise headed to get her rifle and Kaga moved to join them. "Did Fujita-chūshō have doubts?"
"More than you could believe even if his devotion to duty blinded him to the need to stay silent even after the war ended, Akagi-san," the larger carrier mused, the buried grief inside her heart at her crew's almost-unanimous stubborn refusal to accept the call of surrender in 1945 flashing in her stormy grey eyes. "Then again, it is understandable. Nagumo-chūshō toured America during the 1920s, but he didn't really allow himself to properly absorb things as much as my admiral and Yamamoto-gensui did when they were there."
"That's understandable," a voice mused as the carriers turned to see Heather walk up to join them. "Nagumo was a battleship admiral through and through. The wrong choice to lead something as vital as Operation Z in my mind." She then gazed on Yonaga. "Admiral Yamamoto studied at Harvard when he was naval attaché to Washington after the Great War ended. What of your admiral?"
Yonaga grinned. "My admiral was a Trojan, Teitoku."
"'Trojan'?" Akagi and Kaga asked together.
"He went to the University of Southern California?!"
That was Enterprise, who was now walking over to join them, her eyes wide. In the American carrier's hand was her hand-crafted M1 Garand, built for her at the direct order of the President to celebrate her return to duty two years ago. "Indeed he did, Enterprise-san. Did any of your captains go there?"
"No, but I know of the school," the American carrier asserted. "The commander of Eighth Air Force in Britain during the war, General Eaker, was a Trojan." She then winked. "Actually, I do night courses over the Internet with USC," she added. "They were all shocked when I elected to pursue studies there."
"What are you studying?" Heather asked.
"Humanities with a strong politics minor, ma'am."
An approving nod answered her. "Good. What about you girls?"
Akagi and Kaga looked embarrassed. "We've never had a chance to consider such things, Teitoku," the former confessed. "We've just been too busy."
"Well, once we get enough of our shipgirls out there, we can give you people a chance to take a well-deserved break," a strange voice then hailed.
"Hello, Jim," Heather called out as James Vance came up to join them, returning the American commander's salute. "Good work, by the way."
That made the commander of United States Forces Japan blink. "May I humbly ask the Commanding Admiral to what she is actually referring to?"
"Encouraging your girls to further their academic studies when they get the chance to take a break from their duties. It's a good attitude to possess."
That made Vance laugh. "Well, it's your girls that started it, ma'am."
"Canadian kanmusu do university studies?" Kaga wondered, her eyes wide. None of the corvettes or frigates now at Eta-jima mentioned that!
"Over the 'Net and when they're back in Canada, of course," the American admiral stated. "I know Sackville's finished her freshman year through Mount Allison University in her hometown; she's going for a BSc in oceanographic sciences. Some of the older Flowers, Bangors and Rivers are doing the same."
"That's expected. Sacky served as a research ship for the Fisheries Department after the war until they made her a museum ship," Heather noted.
"What of you, Teitoku?" Yonaga asked.
"Bachelor of Arts in sociology from Concordia University in '52 with a minor in history," the Canadian admiral announced. "Plus a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies at the Naval War College at Newport in '88; this was after the year we took at the National Defence Academy in Kingston in '81."
"OUR Naval War College?!" Enterprise exclaimed.
"The War Hawks have always been on reserve recall in their services since they retired from full-time duty, E. A lot's changed since they gladly threw the Übermenschen out of North America and they needed to be ready in case of things like what we're now involved with," Vance stated as some of the other carriers streamed from the change room to join them on the launch range. He then nodded towards Heather. "The CDs they wear should have some extra bars on them."
"You don't earn time for a CD when in the Supplementary Reserves," Heather said, then she turned as Bonaventure stepped out of the change room, once more in her standard bodysuit, a small dufflebag in one hand and her preferred long arm slung over her shoulder. "Ah, there's a very familiar sight..."
Everyone moved to shift themselves onto the open field overlooking Etajima-wan. The range was basically a flat field with a small earthen ledge at the western end; it was from here that carriers did static launches of their aircraft to get used to putting such into the sky. As people moved to prepare themselves to sortie test flights, White Plains jogged over to raise a red caution flag over the field. "Flag's up for launch!" the adopted New Yorker called out.
"Hai!" Akagi called back, waving...
The main navy base...
"Poi...!"
Fubuki blinked before she gazed on her friend. "What is it, Yūdachi-chan?"
"The carriers are launching aircraft," Mutsuki said, pointing.
That made Fubuki and Kisaragi blink before they looked uphill...
The carrier practice range...
Bonaventure placed herself beside a metal table set a distance from the cliff. Slipping the specially-built Fabrique Nationale/Canadian Arsenals Limited FN C1A1 battle rifle from her shoulder, she put that on the table while she moved to unload her dufflebag. From that came a 30-round FN C2A1 box magazine (in lieu of the standard 20 round magazine for the C1A1 or C1D) and three small ammunition boxes, plus the rifle's cover, carrier assembly and breech block, complete with the "rat tail" compressing rod that pushed against the return spring in the buttstock when the weapon was fired and the piston forced the breech back to eject the expended round and load a new cartridge. "You always disassemble this thing?" Lexington asked as the other carriers watched her.
"It's called 'caution', Mademoiselle Lexington," the light carrier stated. "Even if this is normally meant to double as my catapults, it's always smart to not have a weapon capable of firing bullets fully ready for use unless you intend to use it." With that, she slipped the breech block into the carrier. She took her rifle, pressing the locking catch lever up to allow the barrel assembly to fold down like normal flip-open shotguns did. The cover was then slipped on, then the combined carrier and breech block was slid into position. The rifle was folded back together, the locking catch clicking into place to announce that the rifle was ready to be loaded with a magazine and bullets. With that, Bonaventure pulled the cocking handle back to draw the breech into an open locked position, folding the handle back into place.
"Why doesn't it snap back into place?" Yorktown asked.
"Because there's no bullet to load into the chamber. It's no different than what happens when you fire all the bullets out of an M1," Bonaventure announced as she placed the rifle back down, then took up the magazine. Opening the ammo boxes, she picked out two from one, plus one each from the other two.
The other carriers noted they had colour-coded warheads: Two silver, one grey, one red. "What do the colours represent?" Shōkaku asked.
"Silver are Trackers, grey are Banshees, red are Cyclones," Bonaventure said as she loaded the grey bullet into the magazine, followed by both silver ones, then the red one. "One Cyclone for close range anti-submarine patrol, a Banshee for CAP and two Trackers to do some long distance patrol."
"That's a good package to put up," Enterprise noted, nodding in approval.
"Oui."
Taking her rifle in hand, Bonaventure then picked up the magazine, then slid it into the receiver. Walking over to a position where she was safely away from the others, the carrier pulled back the cocking handle to chamber a round now that a magazine was in place and bullets were ready to be loaded. "Flying Stations!" she called out as she aimed, her thumb taking off the safety...
Fubuki and her friends jolted on hearing the throaty bark of a rifle firing from uphill, then they gazed up just as a flash of energy produced...
"A helicopter!" Kisaragi gasped.
"Sugoi!" Mutsuki exclaimed. "Is that from Bonaventure-san?!"
Two more rifle shots came next, that producing a pair of twin-engine, high-winged aircraft, making the destroyers gape. "Ah! Hornet-sempai's launching her B-25s!" Fubuki declared, pointing as the two aircraft swung over the bay.
"Poi!" Yūdachi said, shaking her head as she pointed up in emphasis. "Fubuki-chan, Mitchells have twin rudders! Those are single-rudder airplanes, poi!"
The other destroyers looked...
...just as a fourth shot echoed over the bay.
That was quickly followed by the most surprising sound any shipgirl from Japan would ever hear from something touched by their type of magic:
Two Westinghouse J34-WE-34 turbojet engines at full thrust!
"Poi...!" Yūdachi gasped as a straight-winged aircraft without propellers raced through the sky, banking hard right to soar down towards the base.
The destroyers screamed as a fast-moving McDonnell F2H Banshee — given the modern designation "CF-102" in Canada — zipped past them at over five hundred knots! The near-sonic speed pressure of such a pass made their skirts flutter to their hips, leaving their hair messed up while the faerie-piloted first-generation jet fighter calmly banked to port and moved to pass over the bay.
Seated nearby on a picnic table, Terra Nova and Nipigon shook their heads. "Now you guys know why we wear bodysuits," the former muttered.
The Japanese destroyers just gaped at them...then they balked as an anguished scream echoed from a nearby table. Looking over, they then winced on seeing a moaning Kongō look at the stains spreading over her clothes, a now VERY empty tea cup in her hand. "Don't you guys believe in canteens?" Nipigon asked.
"MY TEEEEEEEEEEEEEA!" the battleship screamed, twin jets of tears showering the patio. "TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEI-TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...!"
The main administrative building...
In his office, Saitō Ten'ichi moaned as he tried not to slump down on his soon-to-be vacated desk; his window was open enough to hear his would-be lover's pained cry from across the base. "I'm so glad I'm leaving," he whispered.
At her station, Ōyodo gave him a sympathetic look...
The training hall, that moment...
"So I would be allowed to put out podcasts about Chennalton-san?"
"Certainly, Naka," Judy Barnes stated as she walked down the hallway towards one of the classrooms alongside the Sendai-class light cruiser. "You've been putting out your war stories about the Ryūseizen since you all came back as shipgirls, so it wouldn't sound so strange coming out of you. Atop that, the critical threshold worldwide when it comes to general knowledge about magical societies was effectively passed a year ago when things in Tomobiki started to go crazy. People know about Admiral Thompkins. Not to mention Sakurambō Sakura and all the other interesting magical incidents that befell Moroboshi Ataru over the last year thanks to that 'Urusei Yatsura' fan website, so it wouldn't be odd for the public to learn about Chennalton and her sisters."
"Especially with what Lady Jane-san and Carolina-san just had to do to Tinian, Naka-chan," Jintsū added, her finger raised to emphasize her point.
The fleet idol hummed before nodding. The effective destruction of Tinian at lunchtime had been detected both by high-flying Air Self-Defence Force Boeing E-767 airborne warning and control aircraft and Maritime Self-Defence Force Lockheed P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft who had been on reconnaissance missions south of the Home Islands; such information had been released in a statement by the Ministry of Defence right after lunch. That was followed immediately by a joint statement from the Gosho in Kyōto and the White House in Washington, revealing that a "trusted" formation of Canadian shipgirls had been the ones responsible for the destruction. Confirmation was made in those press releases that said formation had detected an airport princess on Tinian who was clearly trying to use the ambient energy of the earth to recreate nuclear weapons for an attack on Japan; it was also announced that a half-dozen Abyssal children similar to the famous Hoppō were rescued by the formation with help from kanmusu from Japan and shipgirls from America, supported by Canada's legendary Royal Canadian Corps of Air Cavalry. While Ottawa hadn't confirmed a thing, an announcement was coming from the office of Prime Minister Trudeau sometime in the morning several hours from now. In a warning statement from Minister of National Defence Sajjan concerning said announcement, the former commander of the British Columbia Regiment warned that certain details about such a formation were classified under the Specialized Warfare Act of 1949; while names of the shipgirls and their capabilities would be released to the general public, their origins and past missions would remain secret.
Naka hummed. "Would that be enough, Barnes-chūsa?"
"What do you mean?" the sorceress from New Brunswick asked.
"Introducing Chennalton-san to the public? I know the War Hawks have a lot of fame and a lot of people in Canada respect that, but something like the First Canadian Battleship Squadron would stretch it quite a bit, wouldn't it? Hai! She and Lady Jane-san and Carolina-san and the others are all heroes for going out there to use their meson shells to destroy the wrecks of the nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers the big powers lost three years ago, but people are going to be curious about things! Does this Specialized Warfare Act of yours really have that sort of affect on people?! A lot of people...!"
"Know about magic," the Forester colonel finished. "Oui, that's correct. Oui, there are a lot of people out there who are willing to stand up for those such as Monsieur Potter and Monsieur Springfield in case there are some rhabdophobic fools out there ready to re-enact the Salem Witch Trials. But no one has the right to take those people who've lived under the protection of the Statute of Secrecy their whole lives and dump them into modern society without doing something to ease the transition over! The Specialized Warfare Act was written to fully augment the Separation Act of 1867, so there's no cause for concern! Besides, the emphasis the Prime Minister will make is the fact that a possible nuclear attack on Japan was stopped and that special warships — now shipgirls — from Canada helped stop it! That's the true news story of the day!"
Naka hummed as she considered that, then she nodded. "Well, it...!"
"Naka-san! Jintsū-san!"
Both light cruisers turned as a panting Kuma ran up to them. "Kuma-chan, slow down!" Jintsū called out. "There's no need to run out in the halls!"
The lead ship of her own class of light cruisers panted as she came to a stop. "You all gotta come out there, kuma!" she declared. "One of those new Canadian kanmusu is taking Inazuma-chan out into the bay, kuma! They put some sort of temporary flight deck on her so she can practice landing a helicopter!"
"What was her pendant number, Kuma-san?" Judy asked.
The cyan-haired shipgirl blinked, then hummed. "Number '234', kuma."
That made the sorceress blink before she giggled. "Oh, it would be her!"
"Pendant 234," Jintsū mused as she recalled the updates all the cruisers had been given on the new arrivals from Canada an hour ago. "Saint-Laurent-class destroyer, seventh of class, Assiniboine. Why does it matter?"
"She was the first one to be turned from a DDE to a DDH back in the 1960s, Miss Jintsū," a new voice hailed as the senior Canadian navy captain on the base came up, exchanging polite nods with the magical infantry officer as they were indoors. "She's the one who first tested the Beartrap system we use to bring helicopters down onto a destroyer's deck in a heavy sea. By the sounds of it, Miss Inazuma appears to be quite eager to accept being upgraded to a DDH."
"Can it be done, Armstrong-taisa?" Naka then asked.
"It could be," Wendy Armstrong affirmed. "An Akatsuki-class has roughly the same dimensions and displacement of any of the Cold War destroyer escorts like a Saint-Laurent-class. Besides, one of Beacon Hill's sisters, Buckingham, did trials with a temporary landing deck back in the '50s while trying to take aboard a Sikorsky HO4S Chickasaw helicopter." As the three light cruisers all blinked on hearing that, the native of Toronto added, "It's a good place for all of you to start learning how to use helicopters while you're at sea."
Jintsū, Naka and Kuma all nodded as they took that in...
The harbour beyond the main base, minutes later...
"Eh?! What's Inazuma-chan doing?!"
"Looks like she's doing a Bucky right now, Bucky!"
Fubuki jolted before she looked at Chilliwack as a crowd of recovering Canadian frigates and corvettes came out to gaze onto the waters beyond the main base, where a determined Akatsuki-class destroyer was trailing one of Nipigon's half-sisters as she prepared to land a helicopter while underway for the first time in her life as ship or shipgirl. "'Doing a Bucky'?!" the lead ship of her own extended class of destroyers asked. "What does that mean, Chilliwack-san?"
"Our 'Bucky' is Buckingham, one of my sisters," Beacon Hill explained as they sat at the picnic tables there. "Back in the '50s, they did what Akashi and Vestal just did to Inazuma: Nailed a landing deck on the aft end of the ship to see if she could land a helicopter. It'll be a lot different since the HO4S is way lighter than the Cyclone that Buffalo Brains there carries now..."
"'Buffalo Brains'...?" Kisaragi feebly echoed.
Mutsuki then leaned over to whisper to Yūdachi, "Canadians sure have weird nicknames for each other, don't they, Yūdachi-chan?"
The peach-haired destroyer nodded. "Poi...!"
"Well, it's a good first lesson for them," Hill's sister River-class frigate Prince Rupert noted before sipping her mug of Tim Hortons. "Get everyone to give it a try. If they like the idea, they're DDHs. If they don't like it, they're DDGs. Nova and Nipigon have designed their Kai San upgrades."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"Kai San upgrade...?!" a wide-eyed Fubuki gasped.
"Sure thing!"
Everyone turned as Terra Nova and Nipigon came over to join them. "But how's that possible, Nova-chan?!" Mutsuki asked. "None of us can go past Kai Ni...!"
The adopted Newfoundlander snorted. "God! You're still thinking you're all being forced to fight Big Mistake Number Two in worn hulls, right?!" she asked. "You've only had three years service on your hulls since you all came through the quarterdeck at Eta-jima, remember?! You're practically brand new!"
That made the Japanese destroyers blink. "Nova-chan's right!" Yūdachi then stated. "We are all pretty brand new in these bodies, poi!"
"But to go to helicopters or guided missiles...?" Mutsuki asked.
Nova grinned as she slipped her hand into her jacket to pull out an iPad. She tapped on the screen before she smirked, then she turned the image to show Fubuki. "The honourable team of Her Majesty's Canadian Shipgirls Terra Nova and Nipigon proudly present the computer-modelled Fubuki-class destroyer, Mark IV-H model!" she proudly declared as the brown-haired destroyer gasped at the sight of what she could be turned into. "You'll put on about a thousand tonnes to have extra balance and get some jet engines in lieu of those old steam turbines of yours, but it'll prevent you from rolling too much when we get some decent radars and sonars on you! Plus give you a real fast gun with loads more ammo to cook off in case you gotta sink a fleet of destroyers...!"
"Not to mention hit them over the horizon with a SH-60K Seahawk carrying Mark 48 ADCAPs," Nipigon added. "And we'll throw in CANTASS for good measure..."
"'CANTASS'?" Mutsuki asked.
"'Canadian Tactical Towed Array Sensor'," Nipigon explained. "I've got it. It means instead of you pinging for submarines..." She made a shushing noise, making the Japanese destroyers lean close to listen in. "Be vewy, vewy quiet!" the adopted Ontarian whispered in a fair Elmer Fudd imitation. "I'm hunting Abyssaws!" She then pointed dramatically out to sea. "A-hah! Thewe's the wascawwy Abyssaw wight now! Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!" Nipigon winked as her voice went to normal. "And you drop an ASROC from thirty kilometres away!"
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"Poi...!" Yūdachi breathed out.
"And your torpedo capacity can jump up to twelve tubes!" Nova added.
Fubuki was gaping. "Twelve torpedo tubes...?!"
"And they'll all shoot ADCAPs!" Nipigon said.
Mutsuki joined in the gaping. "ADCAPs...?!"
"Plus ESSM, a Phalanx, an OTO-Melera 76 millimetre gun forward with loads of shells and a 32-cell Mark 41 launcher for Harpoons, Standards and ASROCs!"
"'HARPOONS?!'" Fubuki exclaimed. She could sink BATTLESHIPS with those...!
Both Canadian destroyers nodded. "But, in case you don't like helicopters, there is the OTHER option!" Nova then dramatically declared as she tapped her iPad screen. "In case the customer is not satisfied with the Mark IV-H model, the honourable team of Her Majesty's Canadian Shipgirls Terra Nova and Nipigon now proudly present the computer-modelled Fubuki-class destroyer, Mark IV-G!"
She showed the picture to Fubuki. "Poi...!" a wide-eyed Yūdachi breathed out as Fubuki shook her head and both Mutsuki and Kisaragi continued to gape...
On a train between Nagoya and Shin-Ōsaka, that moment...
"Did you have enough to eat, Ryūnosuke-san?"
Fujinami Ryūnosuke perked on hearing that concerned question, then she chuckled as Shinano sat across from her in the ninth of a sixteen-car Nozomi N700 series bullet train rocketing down the Tōkaidō Shin-kansen track towards Kyōto. "Hai, I did," the fisherman's daughter from Chōshi admitted as the carrier sat across from her. "Pretty good food, too. Oi, who's paying for this...?"
Shinano chuckled. "Actually, Tariko-san paid for the trip. Not just for yourself and your father, but Kasumi-san and Kanami-san as well."
That made the tomboy blink before she gazed over her shoulder at a nearby lounge area, where Hayashi Kanami and Tendō Kasumi were both relaxing, they being escorted by Taihō as well as a small squad of American subgirls. Noting the content look on the face of Saotome Ranma's magically-created twin sister and the aura of relief cloaking the eldest Tendō daughter, Ryūnosuke shook her head. "What's the story with Saotome's twin and Kasumi-san there?"
Shinano sighed. "It happened around the same time that you were all kidnapped by the Oni's friends. People in Nerima-ku were noting that Ranma-san was becoming depressed at not being able to be with his mother. You know of that?"
A snort responded. "Sure thing! Amazes me that woman never picked up on things! It's all over the freakin' Internet! Doesn't she use a computer?"
"I can't answer that. But what I do know is that one night, Ranma's father took an incense burner that Happōsai fellow once stole from those warriors in China, then used it to pull the power of the curse away from Ranma-san, thus making Kanami-san — or 'Ranko' as she was called — her own being. Then they forced her to pretend to be the Tendō family's 'country cousin' while Ranma-san was finally able to reunite with his mother; given Nodoka's possible reaction to learning of that curse, Ranma's father felt it necessary. After two months of being isolated from her life, Kanami-san got tired of it, then ran away from 'home'. Negako-san's people in Tomobiki picked up on what happened, then transported her to safety while her identity was reconstituted in accordance with the will of her paternal grandparents. While she was forcibly separated from the woman she does care for even now, Kanami-san has her life back under her control and away from any influence from any of those monsters in Nerima who would see her as just a handy target to vent their frustrations on."
That made the fisherman's daughter cringe as her father shook his head. "Met that fool Saotome once when he was training with that lech," Fujinami Fujimi mused. "A more selfish person I've never met. Why he allowed himself to be tied to such a monster as Happōsai, I'll never begin to understand. Thank the gods he never got it into his head to try to pull that idiot engagement scam he loved to use his boy for when he came by Hamachaya once." He chuckled. "That's part of the reason I raised you the way I did, child. Would you want to have anything to do with someone like that Ranma boy?"
Ryūnosuke snorted. "No! If he just dropped his own TWIN SISTER like she was used goods, he's not as 'honourable' as he always said he is!" She shook her head. "Can't believe Moroboshi actually became friends with the jerk!" She then sighed. "No, I can believe it! Hearin' his stupid mom blame him for fuckin' everything under the damned sun while we were busy recovering from what Nengmek'i-sama did just got to me! I never really noticed it before..." She shook her head again. "If Moroboshi had to grow up with someone like her..."
"Indeed, the lad's problems — never mind the whole issue with Negako-san and how that allowed Tariko-chan to be what she is now — can be traced down to that stupid woman and her blaming everything under the Sun on everyone else but her," Fujimi muttered. "Not to mention her husband refusing to put his foot down on things before. The Moroboshi were not at the level of the Mendō or the Mizunokōji when it came to monetary wealth, but they were better off than what Ataru-kun's parents alluded to. Amazes me that so many in Tomobiki never saw it. Look how fast their home was repaired whenever something happened! That's quite unnatural even for Tomobiki! Did Negako-san say anything?"
Shinano shook her head. "No. Then again, we've never really pressed either Ataru-san or Tariko-san over what happened to them. Right after they arrived, Ataru-san saved Kirishima-san with his soulsword when that Abyssal attacked once, then they became literally inseparable. Then Tariko-san became attracted to Kongō-san; I don't think it was just to get her to stop chasing Teitoku like she always does." As the Fujinami family laughed on hearing that, the carrier shook her head. "They've been good to the destroyers and submarines. Always there for dance classes and martial arts lessons, gladly answering questions about what being human's all about." She then giggled. "Oh, my...!"
"What?" Ryūnosuke asked.
"There was this one incident two weeks ago. Ataru-san was lecturing the destroyers about his adventures in Tomobiki in an afternoon class. Somehow, Kasumi-san — our Kasumi-san, of course — and Kagerō-san goaded Shirayuki-san into asking Ataru-san..." Her face then flushed a deep cherry shade.
"What?!"
The carrier whispered it to them. Ryūnosuke then sputtered out in shock as her father laughed. "Kami-sama! How did the lad handle that?!" he asked.
"He called in Negako-san to handle that question," Shinano answered. "He didn't trust himself to give them an answer that wouldn't be embarrassing or force him into a situation that would have hurt someone badly. So he turned it over to Negako-san." She shook her head. "They all got the 'Talk' that day."
"How did Negako-sama handle that?" Ryūnosuke asked. Given what she had seen on that news show when she was aboard the Kashin plus what she had heard from her father about that particular woman, she doubted that the ninjutsu grandmaster would have done as most military sailors would have reacted to such a situation and brought out a "training film" for the destroyers to watch.
"A very visual description, including well-drawn diagrams on the blackboard that covered everything from intercourse to childbirth. That traumatized them all and made them shy from any man on the base — even Teitoku and his staff! — for a week," the carrier answered. "It turns out Kinu-san disabled the adult filters on the destroyers' personal computers because they were being annoying to her one day...and they got quite the eyeful as a result."
The fisherman's daughter moaned. "Shit...!"
"At least the lad understands his limitations now," Fujimi noted. "That was something that never struck home with him — or any of the others who loved to fawn over that Oni girl — until you were all kidnapped like you were."
That made his daughter moan. "Fuck! Tell me about it! If some of the shit I heard from others was even half-true, idiots like Lum and the rest of them always looked on Earth as their own private playground to do with whatever they want! No wonder Moroboshi turned to those Yizibajohei to chase 'em all off...!"
"'Yiziba'...?" Fujimi asked.
"Planet of metahumans near that Elle chick's home planet," she explained. "The place has been a damned no-go zone for anyone for over two thousand years, ever since they all got metahuman powers and turned the planet into a constant fuckin' free-for-all. No government runs the place and there's no sense of civility or order anywhere there. Turns out that over a couple centuries ago, the Oni got bit by the invasion bug and wanted to conquer that planet. The Yizibajohei trounced them so badly, you can't even say the damned name of the planet or the people in front of someone like Lum without them having heart attacks over it!" She shook her head. "Talk about using the biggest bully in the galaxy to make the stupid alien bitch go away! That's vicious!" She then shrugged. "Then again, I can't blame the guy! He nearly kills himself trying to tag her horns...then she turns around and says she's his wife?!"
"Just like Kuonji was with me, now that I think about it."
Everyone perked, then looked up to see Kanami standing there now. "Yo!" Ryūnosuke called out with a wave of her hand. "Heard what happened to you."
"I'll bet," the red-haired martial artist mused as she offered her hand, which the fisherman's daughter gripped. "Ataru always spoke kindly about you."
"Can't see why! How's it feel to be out of the Nerima zoo?"
"Been out of it for a month now while I'm recovering from helping Ataru, Tariko and Negako-san deal with an issue before they came back to Earth," Kanami confessed, winking. "Can't say anything more right now. Wait 'till Friday."
That made the tomboy laugh...
Five hundred kilometres west of the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Vancouver Island (British Columbia) and the Olympic Peninsula (Washington), that moment (local time: An hour before midnight on Monday)...
"How the bloody devil have we allowed things to get THIS bad?!"
Hearing that snarling complaint from her team's air officer, the slender woman with the angular face, well-shaped Romanesque nose and curly dark brown hair sighed. "Because there was a treaty approved by the Crown on TWO occasions which normally declared this a magical matter," she calmly answered as her blue eyes focused on her friend. "No one considered for an instant this should be under our bailiwick until it was far too late to prevent people dying..."
The native of Wellingborough in England's County Northampton took that in, then nodded. "I am going to celebrate once that stupid secrecy statute is forever done and gone!" Captain Lynda Warbis hissed. "Even if people like Larry are trained to understand what normal society is like, there's still this stupid belief too many of them have when it comes to dealing with normal people..."
Rueful chuckles escaped the others in the cargo bay of the twin-engine multi-environmental transport aircraft now flying at an altitude of twenty-five kilometres over the calm waters of the Pacific. Far below the hull of the CY-199 Borealis, a convoy of empty container ships and other cargo vessels on the return run from Tōkyō were on the final leg of their journey back to Seattle and Vancouver to load up new supplies for Japan. Escorting them were one of several Canadian escort groups of frigate and corvette shipgirls based now at HMCS Discovery out of Vancouver, augmented by the seventh American carrier, some American destroyers (both shipgirls and actual warships) and the Dominion's second light carrier. Off to the far north way beyond the radar range of any of the River-class frigates of Group C-2 was the light battleship assigned to the Pacific Division of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron.
Reaching out with her telepathy to lock in on Sundown, Lieutenant Commander Maria Kennisson could only shake her head as she found herself agreeing to what her old high school classmate just complained about a moment ago. The twenty-three members of the 33rd Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit hadn't been placed on a war footing until over a year after Sackville's summoning at Cornwallis, as had other successor units to the War Hawks who could still field active and reserve military personnel. While most of Canada's teams of military metahuman specialists had been assigned to the defence of the Arctic in support of the various Canadian Ranger patrols and Coast Guard shipgirls, Maria managed to get her group on a "roving patrol" that could quickly switch from the Pacific to the Atlantic to backstop Canada's shipgirls while they carried out their missions. Such were always kept secret; worldwide fears of Canada mobilizing its population of metahuman warriors on both sides of the security divide had stayed the government's hands from going public on that even if such would have boosted national morale from Whitehorse to Saint John's through the roof.
Never mind what the alien reaction to it could have been...!
Lucky thing Miss Negako warned us about the Niphentaxians, the native of Hamilton who commanded the "Heroes Alliance of Canada" — as the team's resident prankster, Captain Russell Willis, long nicknamed 33 CSWU — mused to herself. Several of the older specialized warfare units whose members were all trained telepaths had swept in over the last week to clean out the observation posts set up by natives of Phentax Two across Canada. Thank God for a place like Quttinirpaaq Prison, Maria added as she recalled what happened to those aliens once they were brought into custody. While Quttinirpaaq Magical Penitentiary wasn't as horrid as Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren, it was still one of the most feared correctional institutions in the magical world; when one was sentenced there, one definitely faced what American criminals called "hard time".
"Maria?"
Maria looked forward towards the cockpit. "Something?"
"Looks like a carrier battle group with full escorts, including submarines," her team's technical guru answered, his blue eyes sparkling with anticipation as he looked at the touch-screen scanner readout before him. Lieutenant Commander Stephen Caldwell was blessed with hyper-intelligence. While not at the level of Yiziba's trójka of super-geniuses such as the Academician, the man code-named "Warlock" could create things that were magical in their own right; the CY-199 was one such product of his ability to design and build things that were light-years ahead of the best research being carried out in America, Japan and Europe. While the blonde native of West Lincoln near Hamilton had been taken aback by the mere concept of shipgirls at first, he smartly rolled with it and adopted to the new reality; when he wasn't busy with his unit on "field trips", Stephen worked out of Canadian Forces Ammunition Depot Dundurn near Saskatoon perfecting goodies for Canada's fighting shipgirls to unleash on the Abyssals. "Coming up astern of Wasp's position at ninety nautical miles."
"Why attack an empty convoy?" Lynda asked.
"To prevent new shipments from sailing to Japan because of the lack of hulls to carry the cargo," Stephen replied, a smirk crossing his face. "They know they can't strike at cargo aircraft. A Boeing 747 flies the great circle route over Alaska and Siberia to get to Japan, well beyond the altitude of their own air defence suites and air groups. They have to concentrate on ships to choke Japan off. Since they know our shipgirls, the American shipgirls and Japan's kanmusu will fight like wolves to make sure a convoy gets through, it's more economical to hit such ships when they're on the homeward leg of their journey."
"Hoping to hit them when they're sloppy," Russell Willis noted from the pilot's position; Stephen sat in the co-pilot's seat. Of course, the Borealis was flying itself; while not possessing a true AI to manage its many systems, the aircraft resembling a swept-wing version of the Boeing YC-14 tactical transport prototype could manage itself when the auto-pilot systems were turned on. Which was downright convenient for the members of 33 CSWU; Lynda was the only rated pilot of the group, while Maria was a Navy intelligence officer, Stephen a Navy marine systems engineer and Russell an Air Force construction engineer.
"That's what I'd do," Stephen noted. "I can see why many are now believing there's some sort of human-like intelligence driving these things. It has to be more than just the spiritual echoes of the memories of all the sailors lost at sea during the world wars that's making the Abyssals lash out like this."
"Pity Maria can't scan them," Lynda muttered from her seat in the crew lounge, crossing her arms in frustration. "We could have solved this ages ago!"
"That's why we need a live capture, Captain," Stephen noted. "We can't depend on Lorrie since her powers are like Miss Negako's; they can't work as well over water. Sasha's running the patrol over the Atlantic with Yukiko. Ursula's too busy shoring up the magical defences on the coastlines. And Jim can't fly."
"So get me a damned Legion flight ring, Steph!" a voice then echoed over the communications link with the team's field headquarters site in Saskatchewan.
"I'm still working on it!" the technical guru of the Alliance promised the team's legal officer, Captain James Graham, another Hamilton native. "Much that I can do a lot on the fly, Jim, I'm not Montgomery Scott!"
Roaring laughter filled the Borealis. "Maria, have Lynda take Liz and me down with her," a new voice then spoke up as Lieutenant James Woodson came up to join them, followed by Sub-Lieutenant Elizabeth Hampshire.
"I can't fight if I'm carrying you two," the pilot from England protested.
"Just put us down so I can form an ice ship for Jim and I to stand on," Elizabeth suggested, her hazel eyes flashing in anticipation. "I can actually freeze the water all the way to paralyzing them, Jim can sweep in to wreck them with his mega-punch and you can make the snatch of the carrier there."
"Liz, you've never created an ice field THAT big!" Stephen warned.
The wavy brown-haired native of Oakville near Toronto — she was one of the trained nurses in the Alliance alongside Maria's twin sister Lynn — smirked as she tried not to roll her eyes at her friend's concern. "I've practised."
"She has," Maria cut in. Saying that so bluntly didn't provoke a reaction with the others; all the members of the Alliance shared a subconscious psionic link with their leader since it made tactical commands in the field easy.
"Maybe I should go down," Russell then noted.
The others blinked, then Lynda moaned. "I'm a bloody bus driver!" the CF-188 Hornet pilot — she was normally part of 425e Escadron d'Appui Tactique in Bagotville northeast of Québec City — muttered as she shook her head...
Twenty-five kilometres below...
"You sure there's something up there, Wasp?"
"I'm sure of it," the last treaty carrier of the United States mused as she held her M1 Garand close. "Aircraft at high altitude. High as those SR-71 Blackbirds I've heard so much about can fly. But it's the size of a C-17..."
Hearing that, O'Brien scowled as she tried to scan up with her own radar set. "Yeah, it's huge," the Simms-class destroyer who had answered the call to duty at the same time Wasp did muttered. "What the hell is it, anyway?"
"One of the secret airplanes."
Both American shipgirls blinked as Kirkland Lake shifted back to be in talking distance of the carrier and the destroyer. "'Secret airplane'?" Wasp asked.
"Some type of spec ops bird that always shows up watching over convoys on both coasts," the River-class adopted Ontarian noted. "Can't tell you the model type; hell, it's hard to get the serial number of the thing when it's that far up. They show up and disappear from time to time. Any calls up to them don't get answers; they always operate under EMCON. Some of us have seen Abyssals get wiped out in cartload lots at a far distance whenever one of those things show up. Like what our Japanese friends always say about the Ryūseizen..."
"WAIT! Something's launching from it!"
The others tensed on hearing Vancouver's warning shout, then focused their radar scans straight up. "Three...! No, four people coming down!" Kirkland Lake called out. "Shit, are they doing some sort of HAHO or HALO jump...?!"
"No! Whoever is in the centre of the mass is FLYING!" Vancouver snapped.
"WHAT?!" the other shipgirls hearing this cried out...
Eta-jima, the carrier launch range, that moment...
"Teitoku!"
Heather Thompkins perked on hearing that shout. "What is it?"
Nagato ran over, thrusting an iPad into the Canadian admiral's hands. "Flash traffic from Capilano-san!" the battleship announced; she had just got the warning signal relayed to her from Ōyodo in the base headquarters complex. "Unknown aircraft, possibly Canadian, spotted now flying over Convoy TVS-47, now 270 nautical miles west of the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca! Three, possibly four, people just jumped from that aircraft at an altitude of twenty-five kilometres, descending to a position astern of Wasp-san." She tapped a control on the screen to show a graphic for the Canadian to see.
Heather hummed as people hushed while Umezu Saburō and James Vance both watched from either side of their new commander-in-chief. Pulling up her own iPad, the native of Québec City tapped controls to get into one of her personal files, then she smirked before opening a channel link. "Spitfire to Warlock."
"Warlock here," a gruff man's voice called back.
"State the Alliance's intentions."
"Telepath here. We're on a search-and-capture mission at this time, Spitfire," a demure woman then answered, making the other people there gape on hearing such an audacious plan while many of the shipgirls began to hiss to each other about how that could be done. "Morning Glory, Swiftsure, Frostfire and Crackerjack just egressed from our CY-199 to trap the enemy carrier force now west of TVS-47's and Group C-2's current position. Will seek to capture the carrier alive for interrogation and examination by myself and Warlock as soon as we return to Seventeen Det. Other units will be disposed of; if we can, we'll capture them." An amused chuckle echoed over the satellite link, which told Heather the signal encoding Stephen Caldwell long ago devised for use by Canada's fighting forces in this conflict just clicked in. "Jimmy's in the mood to smash things and Russ hasn't pranked anyone in three days, Miss Thomas."
As the naval officers surrounding the magical member of the War Hawks blinked in confusion, Heather chuckled. "I assume Lynda's doing the capture, Maria."
"Affirmative. Liz will freeze the enemy formation in place."
Heather nodded. "Commander Kennisson, you're 'go mission'."
She could sense the secret smile on the Hamilton native's face on saying that. Even if none of Canada's specialized warfare units were under the admiral's operational control, there was the still-strong teacher-student bond formed between the twenty-three future members of 33 CSWU with their four predecessors in 1 CSWU when Dean Raeburn and her people learned of the group of powerful teenage metahumans more than a decade before. Remembering the torrent of mental pain Maria Kennisson felt when she had been swamped by constant psionic "tsunami" surging at her via the thoughts of thousands of people after her powers awoke while she was a freshman at Centennial Secondary School in Welland near Niagara Falls, Heather still marvelled at the incredible resilience she showed after she got some training to use her abilities. "Aye-aye, Admiral!"
"They're specialized warfare fighters, aren't they?"
That was Umezu's former medical officer, Captain Momoi Sachiko. "'Specialized warfare'...?!" Oguri Kōhei began...then his own eyes went wide. "Thompkins-taishō! You mean to say that you've always had metahuman fighters...?!"
"Always on standby in case the worst happened, Captain," Heather calmly cut the younger man off. "Just like what might have happened last year if things didn't go so well for Mister Moroboshi." As the others listening to this all grimaced, she sighed. "Miss Nagato, let's let everyone on the base see this. It'll do a lot for morale, just as much as Miss Chennalton's arrival did."
The battleship blinked, then nodded. "Hai, Teitoku!"
London, Bushy Park in Teddington, that moment (local time: An hour before breakfast)...
"Didn't get you up too early, Minister?"
Cornelius Fudge laughed as he shook Dean Raeburn's hand. "Had to stay up last night thanks to what happened at Tinworth Beach, Lad-..." He caught himself. "Forgive me, General. I forgot you're not in the Canadian Wizengamot."
"It's alright," the native of Queenston stated as he waved the British minister for magic to a nearby chair set up in the command tent being used by NATO's new Commander, Allied Joint Force Command for Shipgirls. Accompanying Cornelius were Amelia Bones, Arthur Weasley and Albus Dumbledore, not to mention Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape. Of course, the presence of the Dark Marks on the forearms of the Hogwarts potions master and his former house senior couldn't escape the attention of Earth's Jewel Warrior. Fortunately for both of them, Dean had been thoroughly briefed by her current operational aide de camp about the difference between the murderous opportunists who had flooded Tom Riddle's ranks in the past and those who followed the true Slytherin creed of taking in all options before choosing a side. Atop that, given how much both Lucius and Severus cared for one of the kids who nearly got killed hours before...!
"It's an honest mistake people have made about me," Dean added as one of the junior Canadian servicemen — Albus' and Amelia's sharp eyes had quickly locked on the RCF regimental flash on the corporal's rank slip-ons — served tea. "I was happy to help the Ministry of Magical Affairs after I became my Jewel's Host in '89." By this, the British magicals knew, the nigh-immortal Ontarian meant the year 1889. "The number of non-magical metas on Earth at the time could be counted on one's hand with fingers to spare, so what else could I do?" She lit her first cigar of the day; fortunately for those concerned with second-hand smoke, the leader of the War Hawks used her Jewel to disintegrate fumes she exhaled before someone could inhale them. "When the first real mystery men began to arise in America and Europe in the late '30s, I realized that while we share certain traits, we do come from very different cultures."
"It's fortunate that you did understand that all along, General," Severus noted. He had also spotted the epaulette flash of the Royal Canadian Foresters among several of the people in this tent city set up near where Dwight D. Eisenhower erected SHAEF headquarters close to Sandy Lane at the north end of the beautiful royal park close to the River Thames. Then again, working with members of Canada's elite magical militia would be natural to the woman; before Dean became the student of the Immortal Master in the 1920s, she was seen as a "special" reserve member of the Foresters, assigned to what later came to be called "S" Commando based in Saskatchewan. Perhaps that is what persuaded her to join the 10th Saskatchewan Cavalry when the Second World War started, he mused as he considered that fact about his host. The general is more Saskatchewanian than Ontarian or British Columbian. "As did your friends. It has done the world on both sides of the security divide many favours."
"It's a pity your team wasn't called in sooner," Amelia added. "Maybe the lives that were lost, mug-..." She caught herself, remembering that Canadians didn't care for terms like "muggle" or "no-maj". "I mean normal..." As Dean smirked, she added, "...and magical alike...well, all would be alive now."
"Well, that's for the historians to determine how many years in the future from now," the general stated. "Then again, it wasn't fair either to me or to the people of the world that I'd step into the role of 'mystery man' after the guns fell silent in '45. I can't have people depend on me being there to save them from their own stupidity; it wouldn't be fair to me. Even with my power, I can't be everywhere at once...and making people solely dependant on me to keep them safe and happy would destroy them in the end. Atop that, I'm a soldier; killing people's my stock in trade. In wartime, that's expected...but not in peacetime. Atop that, I've never hidden my identity as all of the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom did. Yes, I didn't have living relatives, but I did have many friends; I wouldn't trust myself whatsoever if someone tried to hurt my friends." She sighed. "I can understand why the government in Ottawa was so hesitant about hauling us into this mess even after the blood spilled at Sabre Island and Iō-tō. Escalation is always something to keep in mind when metahumans come into play." She nodded to Albus. "He saw that."
"Indeed I did," the headmaster of Hogwarts affirmed. "Much that I hoped — and I think we all can say that — the fighting wouldn't have gone as far as it has, now that things have become dire and the Abyssals appear to not want to stop their attacks on people worldwide, everything must be done to suppress them."
"If only we could capture one of them," Arthur stated. "Study it. I know there are the very young ones like Miss Sealtainn who never developed any sort of magical or metahuman link to older Abyssals and gained the drive to kill people. Not to mention the odd adult Abyssal cut off by magical teams setting up guard wards on the shorelines, like that one Wo-class aircraft carrier Lady Haruna befriended earlier this year. We still don't understand much about them. Where did they come from? Why are they so angry at humans and other species? I know that Abyssals have attacked goblin treasure expeditions; it was a miracle my eldest son wasn't hurt that one time in Egypt."
"Well..."
"Spitfire to Ladyhawke."
Dean blinked as the others perked in surprise. "Heather, Stephen made sure our comm links are more secure than all the gold in bloody Fort Knox!" she snapped as she looked over her shoulder at one large flat-screen television hanging off the support bar at the southern end of the tent. It now displayed her former subordinate and now operational superior currently in a kyūdō dōjō, she now flanked by the commander of American naval forces in Japan and the former commanding officer of the Mirai. "What's with all the damned code-names?"
"Had to get you into the mood," Heather teased back. "Hello, everyone!"
"Good to see you again, Madame Supreme Mugwump," Cornelius greeted for them all. "It appears to be a nice day in Japan. Is there something wrong?"
"Not really, Minister," Albus' predecessor as leader of the International Confederation of Wizards replied. "I'm just relaying some interesting news for Dean here." She then gazed on her old commanding officer. "It appears that certain of our students from over a decade ago are doing something silly."
Dean blinked. "Why am I thinking of Russ?"
"Is the general abusing his chief engineer?!" a strange voice teased over what sounded like air whistling past his mouth at very fast speeds.
A new window appeared on the screen, revealing four people, with a woman and two men hugging another woman from both sides and the back...and all of them were now in what appeared to be free fall somewhere in the sky in the middle of the night; the low-light cameras in use these days made their faces as clear to the magicals as if it was brightest noon. All were now dressed in the white-and-grey Arctic Warfare pattern of Canada's CADPAT digital camouflage system, though their clothes were skintight bodysuits in lieu of standard combat uniforms. The woman in the middle had blue air force captain's rank on her shoulders above the squadron title 425e ESC. The blond man hugging her from behind — seeing the anticipatory grin on that fellow's face, Arthur was reminded immediately of his twin sons Fred and George — was also a captain in Canada's junior armed service, bearing the branch title CME. The woman to the pilot's right was a Navy sub-lieutenant bearing the unit flash 15 FD AMB. And the other man to the pilot's left was an Army lieutenant with the regimental shoulder title 56 RCA. "You're ONE of my engineers, Captain!" Dean snapped back. Albus was quick to see the amused sparkle in the general's blue eyes as she said that. "What the hell are you doing imitating the Sky Hawks?!"
"We're going Abyssal hunting," the pilot in the middle replied over the whistle of air passing by as they dropped down at terminal velocity, surprising Dean's guests by her East Midlands accent. "I'm needing some danger pay in this one, Dean. I didn't ask to be a bloody air taxi for these three!"
"You still love us, Lynda!" the army lieutenant called out.
Dean snorted. "What's happening?"
"Diving on an enemy formation that's about to surface near a convoy three hundred nautical from Juan de Fuca," the woman to the pilot's right declared.
"Actually, they just surfaced!" a new voice then cut in.
"Show me, Stephen!" Dean ordered.
"Aye, ma'am!"
A third window appeared, revealing a sea cloaked in near-midnight black even if it was displaying a light-enhanced view of the scene...but with many beings having just surged up from below, revealing a Wo-class carrier, four Ri-class heavy cruisers, two Chi-class torpedo cruisers and two squadrons' worth of destroyers. Target icons to both sides of the formation indicated that there were also sub-surface threats in the area. Seeing that made Dean gape; even if she wasn't a naval officer by training, she could tell that was just TOO big of a force to deploy against one single convoy. "What the hell...?" she hissed. "What's the size of the convoy heading into Vancouver and Seattle, Stephen?"
"Sixteen container ships: Six ULCVs, ten New Panamax size. Total cargo capacity is just over a hundred and ninety thousand TEUs combined. Atop that, we've got four VLCCs with a combined cargo capacity of 880,000 tonnes of fuel oil and ten Valemax-class freighters with a combined capacity of 3,200,000 tonnes of dry goods and other raw materials. If they get sunk, that's going to lower the total supplies North America can send to Japan in any convoy cycle by sixteen percent. It'll take more than two years to build replacements."
"'TEU'?" Lucius asked, his mind reeling at the numbers quoted. While he found it often hard to emotionally accept the sheer scale of what muggles could do, he had to admit that when they built grand, they built VERY grand indeed!
"'Twenty-foot equivalent unit'," Stephen Caldwell — as Albus now recognized — translated. "Think of a rectangular box twenty feet long, eight feet wide and eight-and-a-half feet tall. The volume inside the box is one TEU. The total amount the ULCVs — that term means 'ultra large container vessel' — in this convoy can carry is equal to TEN times that of the internal volume of Hogwarts Castle itself, including all the dimensionally displaced rooms."
That made the Hogwarts alumni gape in shock, even Albus. "Mister Caldwell, how on Earth did you determine that?" the headmaster then asked.
A morbid chuckle responded. "I taught them all how to stealthily enter the school when they were enjoying their winter term of their graduate year, Albus. We disguised it as a skiing trip to Kissing Bridge near Buffalo," Martin Larsden explained. Dean was quick to note that her team sniper had just joined into the mass video-chat, as did Jessica Dover. Atop that, there was a big crowd of shipgirls listening in. "This would have been when Lord Malfoy there was in his fourth year. Stephen, didn't you report someone playing a terrible prank inside the Slytherin girls' dorms around that time you went in there?"
"I remember that!" Russell Willis then stated. Seeing the resident prankster of the Heroes Alliance of Canada suddenly scowl made Albus gape in shock as he recalled what the team's magical advisor, Sub-Lieutenant Larry Brigham, once told him about the man; the native of Windsor was not known to get angry over ANYTHING! "It would have been a mass 'pink party' by the seniors there, forced all over the junior girls from freshman year up. Steph and I got together to make those idiots understand one does NOT do that to such pretty ladies!"
"Translation: Mass rape," Stephen added.
That made Lucius turn stark-white as he recalled what his future wife had told him about what happened. As Severus gave him a knowing look, the current lord of Clan Malfoy of Avebury took a deep breath. "Master Hunter Larsden, Lady Raeburn, please accept my thanks for your students' actions! My future wife and her sisters would have been three of the victims of that horrid event!"
"Does your group interact with 'W' Division or the Foresters, Mister Caldwell?" Amelia then asked. "Even if it is many years later..."
"We can get meson memory crystals to you as soon as possible, Madame Bones," Stephen assured her. "In the meantime, Liz, I think you're low enough!"
"Right!" the sub-lieutenant to the pilot's right — Elizabeth Hampshire, Albus then recognized, his heart aching at the idea of a NURSE being involved in a fight against Abyssals even if her cryokinetic abilities could help freeze things in place for Lynda Warbis, Russell Willis and James Woodson to use to destroy the enemy — called out as silvery energy formed around her arms...
West of the Strait of Juan de Fuca...
Smirking in delight and anticipation, the Wo-class fleet carrier now commanding a powerful task force of heavy and light cruisers, destroyers and submarines could only lick her lips in expectation of being able to sink a big convoy of defenceless merchant ships before they could get to the safety of the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound to reload their holds with new cargo for the damned Nips across the Pacific. Driven constantly by the memories of sailors who had been burned to death when the slant-eyed bastards began using kamikaze tactics to stay in World War Two after losing a good chunk of their fleet at Leyte and the Marianas, she found it totally reprehensible that the citizens of the Land of the Free would actually want to HELP the Japs whose ancestors had murdered thousands in their sleep at Pearl Harbour, not to mention slaughter so many more across Asia to create their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"!
Thinking on that, she then recalled the early years of the current war. The thrill she and her group of cruisers, destroyers and submarines felt when they roamed the whole northern Pacific virtually at will, sweeping it clean of enemy shipping while surface bombardment groups surged in to destroy villages in Japan and force the stupid natives to heel to their betters. The outrage they soon felt on seeing American and Canadian warships jumping in to defend the slant-eyed monkeys, necessitating the total destruction of the Pacific Fleets of the Union and the Dominion at places like Iō-tō. The frustrations stemming from dealing with magical policing forces of many nations, who gladly did their best to shield coastal towns and ports from attacks, not to mention try to jam inter-fleet communications to disorientate Abyssal forces. The grim, ugly necessity of denying the traitorous natives of North America any chance to rebuild their fleets and surge out anew; much that it hurt them to fire on people who gladly flew the Stars and Stripes, the carrier and her friends had long agreed it had to be done to make the Nips finally submit. Then the shock and horror of confronting the shipgirls, the living spirits of Jap warships brought back into human form that surged out to defend their homeland.
Then the damned Canadians got onto the shipgirl bandwagon...!
What was worse, the maple fudge-loving hockey fanatics didn't play FAIR!
It was bad enough to deal with determined Nip shipgirls prepared to sacrifice all to save their homeland and force the Abyssals back from their shores.
It got a million times worse when reborn Flower-class corvettes and Bangor-class minesweepers appeared mere weeks after the Kongō sisters returned...
All packing 57 millimetre guns that pumped out shots at 200 rounds per minute...
That didn't mention their six barrel 30 millimetre Gatling guns that could crank out a HUNDRED ROUNDS a SECOND to bring down aircraft...
And there were those Mach 4 missiles that could hit from THIRTY miles out...
To say anything of their using torpedoes that NEVER failed...
Then, when the River-class frigates came back with those anti-ship missiles of theirs that could reach out and sink someone from SIXTY miles away...
The Abyssals certainly couldn't ignore those damned magical staffs escort group leaders had available to use when they nearly got swamped...!
Didn't those lunatics in Canada understand ANYTHING?!
Before she could send her night fighters out to begin the attack on the convoy, the carrier blinked on seeing something silvery pour DOWN from the clear skies overhead to touch the calm seas dead ahead of her bow, creating something as tall as the highest mountain in the Rockies and as slender as a fragile needle of hay. Focusing her optics and radar on what had just appeared before her — it certainly didn't match anything known about what magicals in North America could do — she hissed on seeing that the construct was now plunging into the ocean dead ahead of her formation. As the destroyers all surged ahead to determine what it was, the carrier sent out signals to her cruisers...
KRUNCH!
In the blink of the proverbial eye, said carrier was now beached face-first on a sea of ICE many metres thick, her hull ringing with pain. As her own damage control faeries began an examination of her hull, she looked up, grateful her flight deck hadn't been twisted from the impact so she could launch...
Eh?
What was THAT?!
As the others in her formation moaned while they tried to pick themselves off the ice that appeared out of NOWHERE to beach them all, the circular walls of what appeared to be a stadium of some sort seemed to GROW out of the endless fields of frozen water. That made the dark sea spirits hiss out while the carrier slowly staggered back to an even keel, spitting out curses in her language at the massive intelligence SNAFU she just encountered. After all the years of scouring the seven seas to learn all its secrets, to have this...
...huh?!
"Okay, ladies! We don't have all night, you know!"
What the hell was some MAN doing standing at the gate leading into the stadium?
Especially dressed in a MATADOR'S uniform from Spain of all places?!
Complete with a long RED CAPE to boot, held off to one side!
As the carrier tried to figure out what was going on here, her cruiser escorts howled as they charged forward, weapons portals snapping at the bit to get at this strange human who was butting in the way of their sacred duty. As one of the Chi-class ships rapidly closed the range, the carrier blinked in shock as the man — who was quite handsome as humans came, with blond hair cut military short and sparkling blue eyes — just STOOD there, as calm as a cucumber...
As the torpedo cruiser got into point-blank firing range of her main guns, the "matador" smirked as he swept the cape clear...
...to reveal a beefier blond man with dark grey eyes, dressed in a form-fitting uniform that showed off all those gorgeous muscles...
She then gape on seeing the newcomer raise his right fist.
A GLOWING right fist!
KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM...!
The carrier screamed as the whole area rang with the explosion of supercharged mesonium causing the poor cruiser's magazines to go up like a Roman candle!
As the other Abyssals croaked in horror at the sight of one of their own so easily turned into ashes, the "matador" smirked as his clothes morphed into an Arctic-pattern camouflage uniform matching his friend's. As his friend whooped after he wrecked a cruiser with the metaphysical mass of six thousand tonnes with ONE BLOW, the other pulled up his hands, deliberately cracking his knuckles as his smile turned into something that was totally evil.
"To paraphrase the great Mister Marx..."
He then crouched himself as his whole body began to glow.
"...'Of course you know, this means war'."
The carrier screamed out as both men charged at the Abyssals...
Eta-jima, by the dockyard, that moment...
"Poi...!"
"Nanodesu...!"
"Kuma...!"
"Bóže moj...!"
"Lieber Gott...!"
"Madre di Dio...!"
"Holy shit...!"
"What the hell ARE they?!"
"Four members of the 33rd Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit."
The mass of destroyers and cruisers having gathered ashore to watch what was happening on the other side of the Pacific via a specially-augmented iPad that Terra Nova carried with her all turned to gape in shock at Moroboshi Negako, who was now seated beside a calm Martin Larsden. "The Thirty-third...?!" Tenryū exclaimed. "You mean to say that all this time, the Canadians...!"
"Regardless of the fact that metahumans as a whole decided to no longer behave as 'mystery men' in emulation of what had been depicted in North American graphic magazines in that time period after the Second World War ended, new metahumans continued to arise," the ninjutsu grandmaster calmly stated. "Because of that, Deannette, Martin, Heather and Jessica created a private 'specialized warfare school' to help people such as Lynda, Elizabeth, James and Russell master their abilities." As Martin gaped in surprise on noting that the ninjutsu grandmaster knew of the identities of the four young metahumans now fighting the Abyssals off Vancouver Island, Negako added, "The price one was asked to pay to gain the right to endure such training was that those who went to this school were made to join the armed forces or national police agencies of their home nations after they graduated." As the shipgirls gaped, she nodded. "Even people from nations allied to the Soviet Union were allowed to travel to the Raeburn mansion at Clayhurst near Fort Saint John to learn how to use their abilities. That school is still in operation to this day; with the high levels of mesonium in Earth's biosphere, the coming of more metahumans has always been a certainty. Thanks to the signing of the Specialized Warfare Treaty of 1956, Deannette's school gave the leaders of nations worldwide a sense that they could prevent a new 'metahuman arms race' from starting."
"No more Übermenschen," Max Schultz declared.
"Or the Black Dragon Society," Tatsuta hissed as she hugged herself.
"Indeed. It also effectively established a metahuman version of the 'mutually assured destruction' concept that became strategic policy in the United States and the Soviet Union when intercontinental ballistic missiles were developed."
"The secret airplanes...!"
That was a wide-eyed Chilliwack. "Indeed, Miss Chilliwack," Martin stated. "The aircraft you and your friends know of is designated the CY-199 Borealis. It's a space-capable transport aircraft that can serve as a base ship for any specialized warfare unit that deploys in support of national or allied forces. The 33rd Unit's technical officer, Stephen Caldwell, was its designer."
"Commander Caldwell?!"
That was a wide-eyed Terra Nova. "Nova-chan, you know him?!" Fubuki asked.
"Yeah!" the adopted Newfoundlander affirmed. "He's the chief weapons designer at the ammunition depot in Dundurn! He's the one who's help us adjust to all the modern gear we're shipping! He's the one who forged the new FN C1A1 rifles Bonnie, Maggie and Warrior carry! He even helped Nipigon and I design your Mark IV upgrades!" As the others all gaped, she shook her head. "Why...?!"
"Do you wish to help end this war, Miss Nova?" the police commissioner asked.
"Of course!" Nova snapped.
"And the rest of you?!" he then demanded of the others.
"HAI!"/"JA!"/"SÌ!"/"YESSIR!" the other shipgirls all roared.
Martin nodded. "Now watch closely..."
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
1) Translation list: Etajima-wan — Eta-jima Bay; Hisako-yama — Mount Hisako; Shōsa — Army major/Navy lieutenant commander/Air Force squadron leader (NATO rank code OF-3); Gosho — Literally "great place", this is the name bestowed to the Imperial Palace in Kyōto (the palace in Tōkyō is called Kōkyo ["Imperial Residence"]); Rhabdophobic — Adjective of rhabdophobia, my term to indicate a fear of magicals (especially wand-using magicals) by normals (it can also be called mageiophobia); Tōkaidō — East Sea Route; Shin-kansen — New Trunk Line; -ku — Name suffix for a large city ward; Quttinirpaaq — Top of the World; Trójka — Threesome; 425e Escadron d'Appui Tactique — 425th Tactical Fighter Squadron (note "appui" often means "support" when used to translate other terms); EMCON — Emissions Control (term for total electronic silence from a warship, even from scanner systems or communications systems); HAHO — High Altitude, High Opening (term used for high altitude parachute drops where the chute is deployed shortly after leaving the aircraft); HALO — High Altitude, Low Opening (term used for high altitude drops where the chute isn't deployed until the jumper is close to the ground); CADPAT — Canadian Disruptive Pattern (the current model camouflage scheme used in the Canadian Armed Forces for personnel out in the field); VLCC — Very Large Crude Carrier; Madre di Dio — Mother of God.
2) As noted before, the CD is the Canadian Forces Decoration, the long-term service award of the Canadian military. To qualify, one must have served in either regular or active reserve capacity for a minimum of 12 years without spending time in detention or on non-paid service such as the period between swearing one's oath to the Crown to serve and commencing basic training. A bar to the CD is added for every subsequent 10 years of service. When one is in the Supplementary Reserve — in effect, retired from active or reserve duty but eligible to be recalled if required — one doesn't earn time for the CD.
3) The different types of FAL rifle used by Canada and constructed by Canadian Arsenals Limited in the Toronto neighbourhood of Long Branch during the Cold War: The C1A1 was the basic infantry sidearm with 20 round magazine and select fire capability while the C2A1 was the squad automatic weapon with bipod, 30 round magazine, full automatic fire and heavier barrel to withstand the heat of so many shots being used. The C1D was a C1A1 with automatic fire capability and 20 round magazine meant to be used by naval boarding parties.
4) In Royal Canadian Navy service during the late 1950s, the McDonnell F2H Banshee fighter was not given a "CF" model code. All military aircraft in service with Canada were switched to a three-digit model code system in the 1970s; this is the reason the McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III are designed "CF-188" and "CC-177" in Canada respectively.
5) A "training film" is military slang for an adult pornographic film.
6) The 33rd Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit (33 CSWU)/Heroes Alliance of Canada were first introduced en masse in my story Children of the Tensei. This is a team of military metahumans that I created in the 1980s as a sort of answer to such comic book heroes as the Justice League of America or the Avengers. More information will follow in the narrative in future parts.
As an aside, the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom would be the local equivalents to DC Comics' All-Star Squadron and Marvel's Invaders.
7) The Canadian unit short-titles worn by members of 33 CSWU:
425e ESC is short for the 425e (Alouette) Escadron d'Appui Tactique, a tactical fighter squadron based (as noted above) in Bagotville, located on the south shore of the Rivière Saguenay in the city of Saguenay northeast of Québec City and west of Tadoussac. Captain Lynda Warbis (Morning Glory) is a flight lead in the Alouette Squadron when she's not on callout with 33 CSWU.
CME are the Canadian Military Engineers, Canada's military branch who employ all field engineers and construction engineers. Since Captain Russell Willis (Swiftsure) isn't part of the Army, he cannot address himself as a member of the Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers (RCE), which is the land wing of the CME.
15 FD AMB is 15 Field Ambulance, the reserve unit of the Royal Canadian Medical Service (RCMS) based in Edmonton. Even if this is traditionally an Army unit — units of the RCMS were amalgamated into a separate command formation, the Canadian Forces Health Services Group (CF HSVC GP), in the 1990s — members of the Air Force and Navy can serve in field ambulances, as witness Sub-Lieutenant Elizabeth Hampshire (Frostfire). As an aside, a Sub-Lieutenant (SLt) is the equal of an army lieutenant and has the NATO rank code of OF-1; the equivalent United States Navy rank is Lieutenant, Junior Grade (Lt JG).
56 RCA is the 56th Field Artillery Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, which is a reserve artillery regiment now assigned to 32 Canadian Brigade Group (32 CBG), the Army formation composed of units in Toronto and Niagara. Regimental headquarters is in Brantford west of Niagara, with batteries based in Simcoe (now part of Norfolk County) south of Brantford and in Saint Catharines northwest of Niagara Falls. Normally, Lieutenant James Woodson (Crackerjack) is the battery captain (BK) of 10 Field Artillery Battery in Saint Catharines; in that situation, he effectively serves as the battery's executive officer.
As an aside, Lieutenant Commander Maria Kennisson (Telepath) and Lieutenant Commander Stephen Caldwell (Warlock) would wear the basic CANADA national shoulder flash in gold on their epaulettes; personnel in the Royal Canadian Navy do not wear individual unit tags on their epaulette slip-ons unless they're in combat uniforms and are assigned to Army or Air Force field units. The same applies to Sub-Lieutenant Larry Brigham (Galaxy). When he is not a teacher at the Institute of Sorcery and Magic (ISM) on the Sibley Peninsula jutting into Lake Superior or on callout with his friends in the Alliance, he serves as a maritime surface and sub-surface (MARS) officer at HMCS Griffon in Thunder Bay; that is the naval reserve division for northwest Ontario.
Other members of the Heroes Alliance mentioned here are Captain Lorrie Malénko (Skyfire) (an artillery officer), Captain Sasha Spencer (Polaris) (an armour officer affiliated with Canada's senior armoured regiment, the Royal Canadian Dragoons [RCD]), Captain James Graham (Nickelodeon) (a legal officer), Lieutenant (Navy) Ursula Patton (Thunderbird) (a MARS officer), Maria's twin sister Lieutenant (Navy) Lynn Kennisson (Psimold) (a nursing officer) and Lieutenant Aihoshi Yukiko (Sunbird) (a military police officer).
8) With the construction of new locks and deeper channels for the Panama Canal, the New Panamax standard for ship sizes was introduced. Vessels rated as such must be able to fit into the new locks built for the canal starting in 2006. The dimensions of the new locks are 427 x 55 x 18.3 metres (1400.92 x 180.45 x 18.3 feet). Ships sailing the new locks can only have a maximum above-water height of 57.91 metres (190 feet) to pass under bridges that span the canal.
As an aside, Valemax ships are very large ore carriers (VLOC) chartered or owned by the Brazilian mining and metal company Vale SA. The size of such vessels is as follows: They would have dimensions of 360 x 65 x 23 metres (1181 x 213 x 75 feet) and carry a maximum of 400,000 deadweight tonnes of cargo. Such ore carriers would be quite valuable for the amount of bauxite they can ship to Japan and Britain for the use of shipgirls there.
