Disclaimer: I own neither Halo nor Kantai Collection.

A raised eyebrow was the only visible indicator of surprise the woman gave. "Care to repeat that, Captain?"

"UNSC Repensum Est Canicula is requesting reassignment, Admiral."

Now the woman narrowed her eyes, boring into the man on screen with the intensity of an energy projector. "And why should I grant such a request? We need the recruits, Captain. Our very existence is at stake. Whatever qualms you may possess are paltry in comparison."

"Paltry they may be but present they still are, ma'am." The man looked back at her with a surprising amount of defiance as he continued, "Every time we go in we see the desperation with which Fleet, the ground troops, even their parents fight to make sure these children make it off world. And now you wish me to conscript them."

"We. Need. The. Recruits," the woman ground out. "Every time you go in you can see that too. Morals do no good if we wind up too dead to hold to them." She steepled her fingers in front of her. "As unpleasant as you may feel, these children are critical to our cause. And they are nothing if not eager to enlist."

The man looked as though he tasted something bitter. "Of course they're eager; it's all they have left! What good is surviving if we give up all that makes us human to achieve it? I am sick of collecting devastated boys and girls for you to turn into soldiers, and my entire crew agrees!"

The woman slowly placed her elbows on her desk, folding her hands in front of her face. The man seemed to believe the action meant she was considering his words. "We are more than willing to assist in other areas," he continued evenly. "We'll head into enemy territory to gather intelligence on Covenant targets. We'll assist the Fleet in defending the colonies. And rest assured, neither my crew nor I will ever reveal—"

"Of that, I am quite certain," the woman snapped. She sighed. "Very well; your request for reassignment is granted. Report to Sol for debriefing and your new orders. Command out."

Her personal AI, well aware of its owner's tendencies, cut the line as soon as she said out. The woman remained in her pose for a few more seconds, before tapping a button on her console.

Her protégé answered after precisely one ring. "Osman."

"Contact Section Zero," the woman said. "I have a cleanup for them."

Ow, my fucking head, thought Harvest as she returned to the present. She opened her eyes to behold a dark, twisted structure, hate and malice radiating off it into the waters around. The frigate raised an eyebrow, but before she could consider her situation further she noticed the oceanic wildlife in the distance, always maintaining a clear distance from the structure. Oh, right, the Abyssals. For a moment I thought I was in Parangosky's heart. The spaceship smiled in amusement; where had that come from?

Her amusement tapered off as reports on her situation made their way into her bridge. Apparently she had been chained to the ocean floor for some time; several Abyssals both identified and unidentified had manipulated her into position before attempting to remove her equipment. It was with no small satisfaction that her tactical officer explained how they failed to make any headway on her armor. "Alright, I'm grateful they can't kill me down here," she finally said, "but why can't I move?"

Copeland spoke up to answer that question: "Your maneuvering thrusters are chemical rockets, Commander. They will not function underwater."

"What about my main engines?"

"They can work, but without maneuvering thrusters there would be no way of adjusting your course." To illustrate the consequences of such an action, Copeland helpfully replayed her memory of zipping around like a deflating balloon before slamming face first onto the ocean surface.

Harvest grimaced, her stomach aching in remembrance. "Sometimes I think you're a Smart AI after all, Copeland. You certainly can snark like one." Though they were probably far more common now than before the war—plenty more available brains that can be turned into them with war casualties, after all—Smart AIs were still precious equipment whose assignment was tightly controlled, based on who would need the improvisational power of a Smart AI, and who would put it to good use.

At the top of the list for the Fleet were command and control centers like Sol, Reach, and Jericho, assisting their creators in keeping the bases running. It was not too uncommon for large fleet bases to have several AIs running in concert: Harvest knew from personal experience that Fleet Base Jericho had a series of dumb AIs overseeing the repair stations, traffic control, the orbital defense network, and other systems, with a single smart AI in overall control. She suspected other large Fleet Bases had similar arrangements.

Second in line for smart AIs were fleet commanders. Bound to the admiral rather than any specific ship, they'd move with the admiral to assist with running their fleets. Oftentimes such smart AIs would find themselves working alongside other AIs on their flagship: a carrier flagship, for example, would possess both a dumb AI for everyday running of the ship and managing its complement of smaller craft as well as a smart AI in the admiral's quarters for running the fleet.

Third and fourth in line were special operations and task force commanders, respectively, but fifth in line was—ironically—light frigates. Given their frequent use supporting groundside operations, it was not too unusual for light frigates to be assigned smart AIs to help coordinate ground operations, air support, and Fleet ortillery. Though the vast majority of those selected for this precious gift were Charons, Harvest had seen a couple fellow Stalwarts whose dumb AI was replaced with a smart one.

With light frigates, however, ended the rubric for official assignment of smart AIs. Cruisers would have a smart AI only if selected as a flagship. Placing a smart AI on a heavy frigate or even a destroyer—the "poor bloody infantry" of the UNSC Navy—was universally regarded a waste of a valuable combination of the intelligence of a computer with the improvisation of a human. Smart AIs were assigned to ships that could put them to good use—not to mention ships less likely to be destroyed in their first engagement.

Harvest grimaced. As short as her eight-month service life had been, she knew she lasted far longer than many. The average time between construction and destruction of a Stalwart-class light frigate was just under three months. Even that was better than some: the average for a destroyer was about two months. Paris-class heavy frigates had an average measured in weeks.

FleetCom knew far better than to spread such statistics around, and talking about them was the fastest way to bring ONI crashing down on your head aside from walking around Reach proclaiming yourself an insurrectionist. But there was nothing FleetCom or ONI could do that would prevent people from doing the math themselves.

Harvest sighed despondently. She had been so damn happy; finally, a place she didn't have to worry about being killed out of course! Finally, a place where she was the Big Ship in Town. Intellectually, she knew Enterprise had been right: just because she was powerful did not mean she was invincible—the hole she blasted through the slipspace drive of that CCS class after Skopje should have told her that well enough. But she just wanted to believe…

A report from her hanger brought Harvest out of her melancholy. The frigate smirked; as the Covenant got to learn time and time again, just because the UNSC was down didn't mean they were out. Her hanger doors faced the ocean floor; like a diving boat, the air pocket inside the ship should keep the water out even as the doors were opened, but all hatches were sealed just in case.

First to drop out of the bay doors were six SOEIV pods. Her engineers had worked overtime modifying the drop pods, and though Harvest knew her crew to be the best she still fretted as the pods sank deeper, only to cheer internally as the drag chutes popped out just as she hoped. Harvest knew several of her SOEIV pods were now useless with their drag chutes cannibalized, but it was worth it seeing the makeshift balloons pop out and send the six drop pods rocketing towards the surface. Part One, complete.

Doing her damndest to keep her face straight—a grinning prisoner would grab any jailors attention, after all—Harvest watched as Part Two of the plan was set into motion. Fully sealed in their suits, twelve more black-clad figures dropped out of Harvest's hanger, slowly sinking down to the ocean floor. The hanger doors slid closed again as soon as the last fairy had sortied, close-range sensors confirming the Abyssals around her were not moving outside their usual patrols. Harvest allowed herself a small smile; her actions had gone unnoticed. Good.

The frigate glanced down her bindings, picking up her fairies in her peripheral vision. Though the twelve fairies did carry explosives, they were not there to break Harvest's bindings; they had no idea if they carried enough explosives to break the—understandably over-the-top—chains keeping the frigate on the ocean floor, and whether it worked or not the explosion would draw everyone's attention. Even if Harvest did break free, there was no way she could recover her crew before bugging out, and if it failed then the game was well and truly up. Instead, Harvest wiggled her eyebrows, and the twelve fairies saluted and started making their way towards the Abyssal base in the distance. Away, my pretties, Harvest thought sardonically, and smiled.

Far above the bound spaceship, six small spheres broke the ocean surface. Inside the SOEIV pods dangling below the balloons, the six ODSTs of Able Squad pressed the buttons that would normally fire the retro rockets that would slow and allow them to steer during their descent from orbit. Instead of rockets, however, the buttons activated yet more makeshift balloons, which brought their pods fully to the surface. Ejecting the pod doors, Able leaned out of their pods, and confirmed the nearby presence of a body of land that, if the swabbie working Navigation was to be believed, was one of the many bits of land making up the Marshall Islands. Satisfied of their position, the ODSTs paddled their pods towards shore.

While Baker and Charlie Squads got to have fun fucking up the Abyssal base and while Dog, Easy, and Fox Squads got to put their feet up and relax—that is, 'protect the ship in case the enemy tries anything funny'—Able Squad pulled the assignment of summoning help. The six ODSTs had been miffed that the heavy weapons in their pods were replaced with the components for three sets of tightbeam communications gear, but they had been assured that the ships their frigate interacted with for the past couple months possessed some rudimentary radio direction-finding capability. Though setting up an open-broadcast radio in the middle of enemy territory and hoping for the best was a surefire bloody failure, the techies assured the ODSTs that, properly calibrated, tightbeam comms could broadcast to specific friendly ships without the Abyssals knowing any better. The six ODSTs set the self-destruct charges on their emptied pods before splitting into pairs, each group heading to a disparate point on the island to hide out and set up.

None of the Abyssals on the island reacted much to what sounded like a series of gunshots echoing through the air. When you were stationed near what the humans would term an "R&D Lab", you quickly became inured to any but the most powerful explosion; something that sounded like one of the human's pistols would draw more notice for how quaint it was than as a sign of danger. A couple of Abyssals laughed, one rolled its eyes. On the lookout for far bigger things, none of the Abyssals noticed tiny figures in the shadows.

Ping.

Nagato's eyes shot open. She had been looking forward to finally getting some shut-eye. The three days since Harvest had disappeared had been a living hell; frantic searches, constant conference calls with the Admiral, with Saratoga, with Prince of Wales, and so many more had yielded nothing. Not helping matters was Enterprise—a kanmusu Nagato felt she should be able to lean on to help—being all but inconsolable after what happened. Nagato felt guilty for thinking such thoughts; the American had apparently seen Harvest disappear under the waves, after all, and had frantically leapt into the bay after her before scrambling around Yokosuka dragging any and all kanmusu she crossed into a desperate search, but as the carrier was finally dragged back to her room by her sisters Nagato could not help but feel some resentment for, yet again, an out-of-the-blue situation dumping everything onto the battleship's shoulders.

Ping.

Radio direction-finding was something that existed back when Nagato was made of steel, let alone this human body. The general idea was that one could pick up a direction from which radio waves traveled, using it as a guide for direction to travel. The Kido Butai had used some radio direction-finding at the start of the Pacific War, using a music broadcast out of Honolulu to confirm they were on the right path towards Hawaii. The fear of RDF also lead the Kido Butai to maintain radio silence on their way towards the Hawaii operation; even if the Americans could not understand radio messages, the mere presence of radio transmissions from a certain direction risked tipping the Americans off to the Japanese fleet approaching.

Ping.

Radio direction-finding had civilian uses too: before GPS and satellites, RDF was a way to find a lost ship: so long as the broadcast was picked up by three different stations, a position could be triangulated. But Nagato had always first picked up a message on her radio and only then adjusted her RDF equipment to follow it. She'd never had a radio transmission sent directly to her RDF equipment. Yet that was exactly what was happening now.

Ping.

Nagato tried to think what on earth was happening, before her eyes suddenly widened. She had nothing beyond a hunch, but she had an idea as to who of anyone would be able to send something directly to her RDF, and what that someone was trying to do.

Nagato ran to the conference room, dialed up San Diego, and waited. It took several rings before Saratoga picked up. "What?" the American asked tiredly. Rubbing her eyes she continued, "Can this wait until the morning? I've got this damn pinging in my head and it won't go away."

Nagato's heart soared. "That's exactly what I'm calling about. I think I know what's going on. Let me bring someone else into the call." Ignoring the exhausted, incredulous look on her friend's face, the battleship stepped back to the controls. Radio direction-finding required three points to get an accurate reading; who else would the kanmusu call? Tenryuu, Yorktown, and Enterprise were all in Yokosuka too; none of them were far enough from Nagato to provide an accurate third point. Surely she knew that, however; she'd call someone else, but who? It would have to be someone she met recently… Nagato suddenly flew into motion, dialing up the third number, adding it to the call, and stepping back in front of the screen.

The call picked up after a couple rings, to show an empty room. "I'm telling you, I've got this damn ping in my head and it won't go away," a voice said off screen. "What the bloody hell do you mean you don't hear it? It's loud as anything to me; my RDF gear might as well be on a fox hunt or something."

"Wales?" Nagato called out. She could see Saratoga on the other screen start to perk up. "Prince of Wales, this is Nagato in Yokosuka. Can you hear me?"

After a couple moments Prince of Wales made her way in front of the camera. Unusually for the stiff-upper-lip British battleship, Prince of Wales wore a grimace on her face, her hands rubbing her temples in futility. "Nagato, this is Prince of Wales in Singapore. Sorry to ask but can we do this later? I don't have any new ideas about your missing girl and at the moment I have this incredibly frustrating—"

"Ping. In your head. That no one else can hear, that won't go away, and that seems to be bypassing your radio room and going straight to your radio direction-finder." Prince of Wales looked up in surprise, taking in the Japanese battleship who had uncharacteristically cut her off, and the American aircraft carrier who seemed quite awake despite the bedclothes she was obviously wearing. "We have it too, and I think I know what it's coming from." Nagato smiled predatorily, as the two Western capital ships listened in. "I think Harvest is calling for help."