A/N: The chapter title is a reference to Enterprise's worldview as a ship girl and is also the title of her lietmotif. An unusual choice of music for a Halo fic, perhaps, but I feel like it fits her character.

Some review responses:

If I Stay: They find out this chapter!

TheEliteDucky: I prefer not to describe too much so the reader can imagine it themselves, but personally I've always seen her as a DesDiv 6-sized Miranda Keyes. Her equipment is a dark grey with white highlights.

Danny79: "Best armor ever made" is certainly an unusual description to attach to a Stalwart-class. Let's just hope it doesn't go to her head...

To everyone else, thanks for the support, and let's get on with the show!

Disclaimer: I own neither Halo nor Kantai Collection.

The figures fell into deep contemplation as the little one finished its report. 'This fantastical tale cannot be true', one figure protested. 'The little one is powerful, but it is still young; it would not be beyond the little one to imagine such a ship to explain to us why the surfacers destroyed its outpost.'

'It is true!' the Little One protested, stamping its feet in a manner a surface-dweller might describe as 'cute'. 'I am no liar! I tell no tales! The surface-dwellers have a new ship, as small as their little ones but more powerful than their battleships! Or even their impersonal ships from before!'

'Many of its abilities seem similar to their impersonal ships', a second figure mused. 'Rockets that strike with precision across the horizon; a gun that can destroy a battleship in one shot. Perhaps the surfacers have managed to give life to their impersonal ships?'

'Their impersonal ships struck hard, but could not survive being struck in turn', the central figure spoke for the first time, hushing the discussion around it. 'I can believe the damage output to be one of the impersonal ships, but I cannot believe an impersonal ship would be able to live after being targeted by a battleship, let alone going on to crush said battleship against the surface.' The figure shook its head. 'This is no impersonal ship made manifest. This is a new threat.'

The first figure protested, 'Surely you don't actually believe this farce to be true—'

'Belief is irrelevant', the central figure admonished. 'You all know as well as I do the surface-dwellers should not have had the power to overrun the Little One's outpost, and the fact that the Little One is young does not make it incompetent. Our only choice is to assume such a threat is real and plan accordingly.'

Silence fell across the figures as they contemplated. 'If,' the first figure finally said, 'If such a threat is indeed real, what can we do? It has already shown itself impervious to fire from our mightiest battleships. Not even the surfacers' Returned are so powerful.'

The central figure nodded silently. 'We cannot simply lie down in the face of this threat, and if the surface-dwellers have one we must assume they plan to make more. We must find a way to counter this new surface-dwell—' It suddenly paused, shifting back to contemplation.

'You have a plan,' the first figure said. It was not a question.

'An idea, to be precise, but yes. We will need to track this threat's every move, and make preparations quickly and without warning the surfacers. But if it works, we may be able to bring such power down to our level…'

Nagato felt her eyebrows rise, and a glance to the side told her that Enterprise's were doing the same. Knowing the stories of the often expressionless American carrier, the fact that Enterprise seemed surprised made her feel better about being surprised herself.

Even so, the sheer scale of what Akashi had just read to them beggared belief. "Are these numbers true?" the battleship asked.

The repair ship nodded, glancing down at her notes. "Four hundred and seventy-eight meters long, one hundred and fifty-two meters wide, and a little over one hundred and twelve meters tall. Those are the figures I got from Harvest's AI, and her own testimony backs them up."

"Four hundred seventy-eight meters? That's over fifteen hundred feet." Enterprise shook her head. "Missouri could stand on Iowa's head and she'd still be larger."

"Sixty centimeters of armor?" Nagato had her own hang-up. "That's practically the face of Yamato's turrets, and that's the uniform thickness, not an armor belt. No wonder a broadside from a battleship demon barely scorched her."

"No wonder she ran over said battleship like it was a leaf on the roadway," Enterprise agreed. "What about her weaponry?"

"According to the AI, light frigates like Harvest are lightly armed," Akashi responded dryly; she'd had her own freak-out over what "lightly armed" meant a while ago. "One Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, twelve point-defense autocannons, and 'only' forty missile pods."

"Forty missiles?" Nagato asked. "So she was able to stock three quarters of her missiles for Alaska? That's not…too bad," she mused, doing some calculations.

Akashi smirked, taking some grim satisfaction in freaking out the secretary ship. "Not forty missiles, forty missile pods. And each pod holds thirty missiles." Nagato blinked, before going very, very pale. She stumbled over to a chair and slumped down.

Akashi continued, "She also is armed with, to quote, 'one Shiva-class tactical warhead, rated for fleet engagements.'" Nagato knew what the euphemism 'tactical warhead' meant; she held her head in her hands and groaned.

"And this 'Magnetic Accelerator Cannon' is a railgun?" Enterprise asked, steering the conversation past things that brought Nagato back to Crossroads.

"A coilgun, actually. The AI was rather insistent on that," Akashi replied. "It launched into a detailed explanation of the difference that went entirely over my head, but you're welcome to take a try if you wish. If you know what the term 'electromagnetic' means you'll at least make it farther than I did."

The look on Enterprise's face said the American carrier had no more idea than the repair ship. "I see," Enterprise said, pinching her nose. "And what about history, did you get anything on that?"

Akashi shook her head. "It had no idea; said that wasn't part of its programming. It did say that Harvest herself might know a lot, however; apparently her captain was a history teacher."

"That's a stroke of luck," Nagato commented knowingly. Enterprise raised the corner of her lips, though the expression did not reach her eyes. "Thank you, repair ship Akashi," the battleship continued. "You may continue with your work." The cruiser saluted and showed herself out.

As the capital ships made their way towards the cafeteria, Enterprise turned to Nagato. "In the future, I'd appreciate it if you kept any comments about any 'luck' I may have to yourself," Enterprise said reproachfully.

Nagato blinked. "You are widely regarded as one of the luckiest ships to have ever existed. Why do you seem ashamed?"

After a moment of thought, Enterprise responded, "Yukikaze is widely known to have survived many engagements in which she should have died. Do you consider her a lucky ship?"

Nagato opened her mouth to respond, before suddenly closing it again as she realized what the American was saying. The two ships remained silent for the rest of their trip.

"So there I was, with this big ugly mother right in front of me, and me at a good twenty-eight knots. Can't turn, can't dodge, so I thought, 'I'm just gonna charge this bitch.' So I put my shoulder down, and ran right towards her! Should'a heard the scream it started making when it realized what I was going to do!"

Harvest had a crowd around her at the cafeteria as she told her tale. In time-honored fashion, the story got better over time—but then again, thought Harvest, so did alcohol, right? A smile split the frigate's face as she told her tale.

"I put my shoulder down and rammed it straight into her! I knocked her down and just started stomping on her—gotta make sure it's good and dead, right?" So engrossed was Harvest in telling her tale, that she failed to notice how many of her listeners suddenly became suspiciously interested in something else. "I stomped her but good, and I looked up, and then everyone just said—"

"Harvest." The voice of Authority cut through Harvest's mood like an energy projector through a Paris-class. The frigate whirled around, and found herself staring at a pair of abdomens. Looking up brought her to the faces of Nagato and Enterprise.

It took Harvest a moment for her brain to engage her mouth. "Can I help you?"

Enterprise gestured. "Come, we need to talk." Looking around, Harvest realized everyone listening to her tale were conspicuously doing other things now. Traitors, Harvest huffed. She stood up and followed the capital ships.

It was a very familiar walk back to Nagato's office; they even took her to the same meeting room that she met Yorktown in. "We've just gotten the brief on your armaments. Pretty impressive," Enterprise led off.

Harvest shrugged. "It's on the lower side for most UNSC warships, but that's also because some of the missile pods wouldn't carry anti ship missiles." Seeing the looks her interrogators gave her, Harvest continued, "Stalwart and Charon light frigates were mostly for ground support; many of their missile pods carried dumbfire rockets for kinetic strikes from orbit."

"You wouldn't use your cannon for that?" Nagato questioned.

"Not unless there was no other choice, Harvest responded. "A typical MAC fires a six hundred ton shell at thirty kilometers per second; the impact is on the order of an early nuclear device. We light frigates would often fire MAC shells about half that size, but a three hundred ton impact is still nothing to sneeze at. And considering we were fighting over our own worlds…" Harvest trailed off before shaking her head. "You'd need special permission from the theater commander to shoot a MAC in atmosphere, too. Bad stuff happens if you do it near friendly forces."

Enterprise looked confused. "You haven't seemed to have much trouble."

"I'm pint-sized," Harvest smiled, gesturing to her form. "A full-sized MAC sends a shockwave that does bad stuff to someone who isn't prepared for it. Anyone without ear protection needs new eardrums, at the least, and doing it danger-close is just asking for friendly-fire. We'll do it if there's a big enough need, but for the most part we stick to the rockets."

"I see," Enterprise made a couple notes, then continued, "Why don't you tell us about these rockets?"

"They're basically a dumbfire tungsten rod I drop from orbit; it gains speed as it falls, before impacting at a lethal velocity. But I don't really see why you'd ask me about those."

Enterprise raised an eyebrow. "Why would we not?"

"Because they're only useful if I'm in orbit; down on the ground they're just a heavy rod. Missiles are much more useful to me down here."

Enterprise's expression hardened. "I thought you were practicing your spaceflight. It seems like you would need to for you to use your full potential."

Harvest shrugged, her smile never leaving her face. "It's not like the Abyssals can hurt me anyway, so why would I? I don't even need to shoot them; I can just stomp them to death. And honestly I'm much more comfortable down here."

The carrier's face might as well have been carved from stone. "A technological edge is all well and good, but not if you use it as a crutch. Complacency only gives the enemy an edge over you."

Harvest rolled her eyes—who was this chick? Harvest fought the Covenant, and knew well and good what a massive technological edge meant. "As long as I don't get swarmed and chipped apart I'll be fine. I'll just roll out with some backup; they can tell stories about how awesome I am, so much the better."

Enterprise's eyes bored into her, but for Harvest it might have been a MAC round bouncing off a shield. This must be what a Covie ship feels like, Harvest thought. Feels nice being the big ship in town for once!

Nagato stepped in to continue the line of questions, but Harvest was completely unperturbed by the American's continued death glare. She was feeling something no Stalwart or Charon had ever felt before—invincible.

Yorktown pulled the hammer of her musket to half-cock and pushed the striker—frissen, she reminded herself—forward. She reached around to her side, pulled out a paper-wrapped cartridge, tore the end off with her teeth, and poured some of the exposed powder into the firing pan, closing the frissen after doing so. Setting her weapon's butt on the floor of the carrier practice range, Yorktown poured the rest of the powder down the barrel before setting the paper and ball on the muzzle.

She was practiced enough not to need her eyes to help her ram the ammunition in place, so she glanced up at her target downrange, satisfied at the number of hits. Yorktown could see her strike planes—TBD Devastators—returning, but she knew from experience they were slow enough for Yorktown to load and fire the next wave before she'd have to recover them.

She extracted her ramrod from the barrel and returned it back to its place before picking her weapon back up, pulling the hammer to full-cock, and shouldering it. She knew her own position, and the position of the target; Yorktown shouldered her weapon with it pointed straight at the target; no need to adjust.

Checking her aim was correct and satisfied that it was, Yorktown squeezed the trigger. *Ka-Pow!* Yorktown watched her two scout-bomber squadrons heading toward the target, nodding to herself as she absent-mindedly raised her flight deck out to recover the ironically-named Devastators.

The SBDs were fast enough that they were ready to land by the time the last of the torpedo bombers were back on deck, and Yorktown kept her arm outstretched to allow her planes to land.

"I knew you'd be here," a familiar voice said to her side. Yorktown turned to behold her sister Hornet leaning against the wall. "But boy they make you find the place."

Yorktown smirked. "You'd think there would be a sign or something that says 'Carrier Practice Range', or at least something to help visitors along."

"I'm pretty sure there is such a sign, but in Japanese," Hornet retorted. Yorktown watched the last of her planes bounce back on her deck and lowered her arm. "Whatcha doin' all by yourself, though?"

Yorktown shrugged. "Just thought I'd blow off some steam."

"Hmm," Hornet responded, watching the black powder smoke drift away. "Steam over what?"

"You know… Stuff." Yorktown winced internally. Just like before, she could see the hits coming, but dodging out of the way was something she sucked at.

"Stuff," Hornet nodded. "Sister stuff?"

"Hornet…" Yorktown sighed, running her hand through her hair. "Look, it's not you—"

"I know," Hornet cut her off. "What do you have against Enterprise?"

"How can you stand it?" The elder carrier froze as her bridge sent several strongly worded dispatches down to her mouth demanding to know what the fuck it was doing just then. She glanced at her sister hoping by some miracle Hornet hadn't—yeah, she heard. Sighing deeply, Yorktown continued, "How can you stand her…acting like this? I understand love but…why does she want a tabular record of movement all the time from me? She's more demanding than my admiral!"

Hornet raised her eyebrow, which coupled with her face said You should know damn well why. "You told her you'd meet her at Pearl."

Yorktown rolled her eyes. "I thought I would—I was, what, a few hours away from being able to start my boilers? Shit happened; it was war."

"They threw a party for us, you know. After Midway, they threw a party. Any time someone came in the door Enterprise's head shot up, only to slowly go back down when that person wasn't you. And when Nimitz came in and announced what happened…she took it hard."

"I took it hard when Lex blew up right in front of me; I don't demand a daily report from her now." Yorktown threw her arms up when she saw Hornet's expression. "What—should I try to apologize to my little sister for dying all those years ago? It's not like I did it on purpose!" She signed and continued, "I just want my all-loving sister back, not this hard, demanding shell."

"All those psychology books you read in the library and you still haven't gotten it," Hornet retorted, folding her arms. "You apologizing won't do anything; she blames herself." Yorktown stared in response as Hornet started ticking off on her fingers. "She blames herself for not getting to the Coral Sea and saving Lexington. She blames herself for leaving you behind at Midway. And she certainly blames herself for not being able to protect me at Santa Cruz."

Yorktown's brain finally re-engaged enough to retort. "What the hell more could she have done at Santa Cruz? She was knocked out and had to be dragged unconscious back to port."

"She refused to leave me, you know," Hornet said softly. "She and Northampton went round and round; finally Northampton promised her she'd get me to safety. When Enterprise looked away, Northampton slugged her hard enough to knock her out."

Yorktown blinked, her mouth hanging open; this was a part of the war she had never heard of.

"When Enterprise woke up, Northampton was there. She took it on herself to tell E that the towing failed." Hornet looked Yorktown in the eye. "She took it out on the poor cruiser, you know that? She screamed at her for not fulfilling her promise, blamed her for my loss. With E still in dock, Northampton transferred to the front, just in time for Tassafaronga."

Yorktown started shaking her head, "I talked to her; she just didn't see the torpedoes. She insisted that's what happened—"

"Do you really think that matters?" Hornet's question was like a bomb through the hanger deck. "Do you really think Enterprise wouldn't believe that her tantrum caused her friend to commit suicide by Jap? Northampton escorted Enterprise from the start of the war—you don't think it's odd that Enterprise avoids Northampton like the plague?"

Yorktown was grateful she had her musket to lean on; she sagged as realization hit her. "How…How can we convince her? We can sit down and talk to her—it worked for you, right?"

Hornet shook her head. "What do you think I've been trying to do, York? My hang-up was over my own performance. Enterprise's…is over us."

'How go the repairs, brothers?'

'We have ensured we will not break apart, at least. From there we proceed to other systems.'

'Very well. Proceed apace, and we may yet regain our lost honor.'