Monday, March 24th, 2014.
Reinforcements have arrived. It's like we're playing Hardcore Headquarters on COD4 - wait a couple days for our dead to respawn, and we're thrown right back into the heat of the fight.
Kiso had her Golden Eye repaired, so it works as it should now.
Yuudachi got upgraded to Kai, so now she's got the same stock equipment as Samidare Kai and Wakaba Kai, the 10cm High-Angle Twin Gun Mount and the Quadruple Oxygen Torpedo Launcher. In addition, since we salvaged her destroyed 12.7cm Twin Gun Mount from the last battle, now that Yuudachi's had her equipment space enlarged, she can stack on her old guns on top of her new Kai guns.
Needless to say, Shigure was the first person Yuudachi saw when she disembarked from Seal Team Six's MV-22. Their reunion was like a reunion of two long-lost friends who hadn't seen each other for decades - except the destroyers' reunion was more depressing than poignant, because...well, Yuudachi was dead just the other day.
Losira and her older brother Hank were here this time. They gave me another protective crate of augmentations, both new ones and duplicate copies to replace the ones that were destroyed in combat.
Seal Team Six identified the "glitch" with Yuudachi's systems - it's an error in her personality codex. The glitch causes Yuudachi to grow extremely aggressive during the night, hence why she was a monster in that last mission. Normally, she's just supposed to be coded to have a sweet, curious personality, mimicking that of an overexcited puppy, but a few lines of code were flip-flopped, causing that glitch. You could say that the glitch was what ultimately killed Yuudachi in the last mission, but had she not performed so well, the battle could've gone way worse for everyone else. So instead of debugging the glitch, Big and his buddies isolated the glitch and extracted it from Yuudachi's personality codex and developed it into its own entire augmentation, then put it back into her main processing unit. Now, because of this code change, Yuudachi can control when exactly she wants to go berserk, and it doesn't even have to be strictly during night battles.
Yuudachi's internal augmentation, thus, is called "Nightmare Protocol". Judging by its description, it basically sounds like a limit-releaser. Technically speaking, Night Protocol specifically blocks Yuudachi's human instincts of fear and uncertainty from being processed so that she is much less prone to hesitation and double-guessing herself, which, in combat, more often than not, is fatal. In addition, it causes Yuudachi's brain to produce more hormones that induce aggression and amplifies instinctual survival mechanics, the "fight-or-flight" kind of base instinct. And so by doing that, the augmentation lets Yuudachi just run rampant, and Yuudachi has full control over it, unlike before, when she just went completely batshit haywire. Simple and straightforward.
As promised, they delivered the full-production version of Kiyoshimo's augmentation, now called the BB-347 Yamato Cannon Mk. I. Specifically designed to be used by Yamato, the Mk. I is roughly five times stronger than the Type 0 that Kiyoshimo used. And because of Yamato's stronger construct as a battleship, Yamato can absorb much more radiation into her systems before they reach critical levels - meaning that she has an effective cooldown rate of eight minutes between Yamato Cannon volleys. But for the sake of her own safety, the structural integrity of her weapons, and the consistency of the Cannon shots, her recommended rate of fire is projected at once every fifteen minutes. In addition, the Yamato Cannon Mk. I is special in that it doesn't take up Yamato's single augmentation slot - instead, it wires straight into her 46cm triple mount, so the only processing power that she needs to allocate to the augmentation is her command to tell it when to fire.
In case you didn't catch it yet, "347" was Kiyoshimo's ship number back in the Imperial Japanese Navy. And now, the Mk. I fires white fire instead of red, because Kiyoshimo's name means "Clear Frost". Kiyoshimo's spirit refuses to leave us, I see. And that's a good thing.
We also received lots of class-specific augmentations, especially for the destroyers, which we've been starting to see Seal Team Six make nowadays, like Suzuya's Heavy Repeater, except Suzuya's is special, since it's internal.
The first destroyer augmentation is a passive augmentation called "JDAM Converter". Essentially, according to its description, Seal Team Six took a few JDAM kits, extracted their coding and programs, and reworked them and compiled the code onto an augmentation tablet. JDAMs are military-grade guidance system modules that are put on "dumb" bombs, or unguided bombs or missiles or other ordinance, to turn them into "smart", or guided precision ordinance. As you might be able to infer, this augmentation turns all the user's torpedoes into seeker torpedoes with over a 95% success rate of hitting. The user only needs to paint a target within effective torpedo firing range, and the JDAM Converter will calculate and arm however many torpedoes that the user wants to fire. While this causes the user to have to delay firing by one and a half seconds, having seeker torpedoes that will chase down targets is a utility that more than makes up for the decreased fire rate. And the user can simply blindfire torpedoes, too, if the range is too close to justify using the JDAM Converter. Obviously this is an extremely powerful augmentation, because the torpedoes that the destroyers used in the last battle more or less kept a lot of them from getting killed outright.
The second destroyer augmentation is another passive augmentation called "Danger Close". Again, another one of those names that got pulled straight out of Call of Duty multiplayer. Why is COD such a prevalent theme with these things, anyway? Danger Close is another torpedo-focused augmentation that does two things: it reprograms the torpedoes to explode in such a way that it not only acts as a high explosive but also as a fragmentation explosive by splattering the area with torpedo shrapnel. It's like if you combined an HE grenade with a frag grenade and kept the effects of both. The second thing it does is that it changes the torpedoes' cruise speed when launched and trajectory so that they hit their targets at more severe angles. TL;DR: Danger Close turns the user's torpedoes into armor-piercing torpedoes and makes them more powerful and more likely to inflict massive damage.
The third destroyer augmentation is called "Ammo Manufacturer", and it's a simple but powerful passive augmentation that, like Yamato's Mk. I Cannon, attaches directly into the weapons and doesn't take up very much processing power at all, essentially being a free augmentation. Because destroyer armaments and torpedoes are easy to produce, the Ammo Manufacturer augmentation can, as its own name suggests, build more ammo while in the midst of combat. The downside to this augmentation is that because of its nature, it's not a tablet PDA like most other augmentations are; instead, it's actually a separate black box that attaches on top of the gearbox perfectly and feeds 12.7cm shells directly into the gearbox, where the ammo is stored and fed into the user's 12.7cm guns. Torpedoes are a bit trickier, because there's no direct feed system that delivers newly built torpedoes straight to the torpedo launcher, so the user needs to manually pull out the torpedoes from the box and feed them into the launch tubes from the front like reloading muzzle-loading rifles like muskets and stuff. In addition, the Ammo Manufacturer can't produce both 12.7cm rounds and torpedoes simultaneously; it just doesn't have enough space in the black box to have that capacity. And let's not forget that the user needs to load the black box with some steel and bauxite before a sortie. But so long as the steel and bauxite last, the user can fight for however long is necessary as long as she balances her use of torpedoes and 12.7cm shells so that the Ammo Manufacturer can keep up.
The submarine augmentation we received is called "Lockdown Converter". This is looking like it could be an incredibly powerful augmentation, too. Like the destroyers' JDAM Converter, the Lockdown Converter behaves similarly in that it allows the submarines to reprogram their torpedoes to have an extra effect. Seal Team Six had been studying the data they've been getting from us in their force field research, like the Waterfall Shield, External Cloaking Field, and other augmentations that employ some sort of defensive matrix technology, and they've come up with an offensive matrix augmentation from their research. What the Lockdown Converter does is allow the submarines to chemically alter the explosives in their torpedoes so that they become homing but nonlethal torpedoes. Unfortunately, it seems like the homing aspect to these Lockdown torpedoes isn't very high, so the submarines themselves need to aim carefully to help ensure that these torpedoes hit home. But when they do hit, the torpedoes will detonate, and the explosives, instead of blowing up to deal damage, will instead cause the air around the detonation to solidify in a clear, electrical force field that "locks down", so to speak, the target inside the small field for about ten minutes until the effect wears off. I know where this reference is from, amazingly enough. This'll be very useful for isolating and bringing back Abyssal specimens, but more importantly, it'll keep dangerous targets like the capital Abyssal girls at bay - that is, if the Lockdown field is powerful enough to stop them in their tracks. But if they are, since Lockdown fields can be shot into but not out of, the girls can isolate them and execute them accordingly.
The light cruiser augmentation we received is called "Shotgun Ordinance", and you might be able to guess what this does. It's a passive augmentation that, to put it bluntly, turns the user's weapons into shotguns: it allows the user to fire all shots at once. I need to clarify how strong this augmentation can potentially be, because normal torpedo launchers can only fire one torpedo at a time, with a two second delay in between shots before the next torpedo is able to launch. Not even Super Kitakami-sama and her trusty sidekick Ooichi-sama are exempt from this. But Shotgun Ordinance overrides the torpedo launchers' rate of fire restriction and lets the user bust out all four torpedoes at once - or, in the case of Kitakami Kai and Ooi Kai, all eight torpedoes at once. And they can afford to do this, because their torpedo launchers are special in that they can carry up to 32 torpedoes each, meaning that between the two torpedo light cruisers, they have 128 torpedoes at their disposal. Needless to say, that's a whole boat-load of torpedoes, no pun intended, so Shotgun Ordinance is perfect for one of these two - I'm mainly looking at Ooi, since Kitakami's got her hands full with her super-duper awesome Weapon Pre-Igniter, and since Ooi lost her Targeting Jammer Mk. II in the last battle.
Those are it for the class-specific augmentations, but we need receive more general-purpose augmentations to replace the ones we lost. We got four more Automated Reloader Mk. II's, three more Targeting Jammer Mk. II's, and two more Psionic Scrambler Mk. II's. In addition, we also got upgraded Mk. II variants of the Silencer and Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement augmentations. Silencer Mk. II not only turns the active mode of its previous incarnation into a passive state so that the user can have the freedom to turn it on or off, but it also increases the muting vortex's potency up to 75%, making it even harder for the user to be heard. The Mjolnir Mk. II increases the potency of its previous incarnation from a 25% health increase to a 50% health increase, a huge improvement, to say the least.
I asked Losira and Hank if they could call off the air support task force coming in from Pearl Harbor for today, but Hank told me that they couldn't do that, since those boys didn't like having to deal with sudden change in plans. I would have to send the fleet out in order not to piss them off. So I thanked them for their troubles and saw them off. Since breakfast, I had the fleet train extensively without the use of their augmentations so that they could fight without having to rely on them as debilitating crutches. Only the last hour before lunch did I let them equip their augmentations again for the sake of the girls testing out the new augmentations we received so they could become familiar with them.
It was a strange feeling today at lunch - normally, after morning training, the fleet would pile into the mess hall laughing, talking, socializing just like normal teenage girls that they appear to be. But today, there was no such banter or any of that. Just small, quiet chatter drowned out by the clinking of utensils and slurping of miso soup. I spoke with Houshou quietly in the kitchens about this phenomenon, wondering if the recent losses we took had a significant impact on the fleet. I mean, every time we suffered a fatality - Ooi's and Imuya's death, and then Samidare's, and then now Yuudachi's and Kiyoshimo's - the fleet was always mellow right after, but what happened at lunch today was the most severe I'd seen it.
Houshou said that in her opinion, Kiyoshimo's permanent death had a huge impact on the fleet. Before, while they knew that any mission could be their last, they didn't really take that threat seriously, and even if they did die, as long as their friends recovered their bodies before they sank, they would come back upgraded and stronger than before. But Kiyoshimo's perma-death put a big ol' fat reality check on everyone, that they, too, could die and be gone for good. I remember glancing out into the mess hall after Houshou mentioned this, and I saw Ooi holding Kitakami's hand tightly on the table they were sitting at as they ate lunch. Houshou said that the fleet was now truly afraid of dying. They weren't demoralized enough to not sortie, but for sure they would all be much less inclined to do anything risky or dangerous because Kiyoshimo's death haunted their recent memories and would continue to do so for a long time.
That, and as Houshou pointed out, Kiyoshimo had been regarded as kind of a flippant girl at base. She was friends with the destroyers and got along well with most ship girls, but she had a reputation of always being that fanciful, overly optimistic and dreamy girl talking about nonsense and being childishly whimsical. Kiyoshimo's final Yamato Cannon volley not only destroyed herself but also that reputation she had. It had cemented Kiyoshimo in the minds of the fleet not as some immature brat saying she could become a battleship one day, but as the ship girl who very well might have saved the entire fleet with her own life. Basically, Houshou said, the fleet was feeling guilty for diminishing Kiyoshimo's true character when she, in the end, had the last laugh and proved everyone wrong.
Admittedly, that just makes me miss Kiyoshimo more, because now I'm starting to realize just how influential Kiyoshimo really was to everybody.
I sent the fleet out to sortie at 1330 hours, a bit later than usual. Before they deployed, I left them with:
"And remember...no prisoners."
I sent them to the waters about ten klicks west of Charlie District, where a large Abyssal patrol likes to hang out. As Seal Team Six promised, the fleet received air support from three AC-130 gunships that flew in from the supercarrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, which is currently on its way to Yokosuka Naval District.
When they came back around dinnertime, Yamato, my flagship, submitted the post-action mission report, which I read while eating dinner with them.
No survivors.
The AC-130s were instrumental in dismantling the Abyssal force, to put it bluntly. Yamato requested that if possible, having air support like today would drastically increase chances of fleet endurance and survival. But other than that, the fleet slaughtered the opposition like I've never seen before. And the scariest part is that they came back like it was just another day at the office. While they didn't show it at dinner tonight, I could tell that today's sortie restored their confidence in themselves in terms of their combat ability. And while today's mission wasn't supposed to be a super tough mission or anything, since I wanted to take it easy and slowly ramp mission difficulty back up, it did a lot to get the girls' heads back in the game.
So after I finished reading the mission report, I stood up with my glass of water in hand and called attention to myself from the fleet. Although normally you do this kind of thing with alcohol, it's against base regulations to drink alcohol at dinnertime unless it's a special occasion or a weekend. I don't like alcohol, anyway. But I asked the fleet to join me in a toast in Kiyoshimo's honor. I explained to them the Western tradition of group toasting, since I'm not sure if Japan has something like that in its own culture. But instead of doing a normal group toast, I asked everyone to yell "Kiyoshimo Banzai!" on the count of three, and then drain whatever they were drinking. I thought people wouldn't really be into it, but to my surprise, when I counted off, everyone toasted accordingly and chugged.
(DD) Murakumo (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(DD) Sazanami (Cell Reactor Booster)
(DD) Samidare Kai (Water Will)
(DD) Inazuma (Automated Reloader)
(DD) Fubuki (Psionic Scrambler Mk. II)
(DD) Akebono (Ammo Manufacturer)
(DD) Wakaba Kai (JDAM Converter, Blind Eye)
(DD) Hatsuharu (Danger Close)
(DD) Shigure (Targeting Jammer Mk. II)
(DD) Yuudachi Kai (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement)
(DD) Akatsuki (Silencer)
(DD) Hibiki (Silencer)
(DD) Ikazuchi (Psionic Scrambler Mk. II)
(SS) I-168 Kai (Lockdown Converter)
(SS) I-401 (Silencer)
(CL) Kitakami Kai (Weapon Pre-Igniter)
(CL) Ooi Kai (Shotgun Ordinance)
(CL) Akashi (Targeting Jammer Mk. II)
(CL) Ooyodo (Automated Reloader)
(CL) Yahagi (Targeting Jammer Mk. II)
(CL) Kiso Kai (Golden Eye/Crackshot)
(CL) Sendai (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(CA) Takao (Automated Reloader)
(CA) Atago (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(CA) Suzuya Kai (Silencer Mk. II, Heavy Repeater)
(BB-X) Kirishima (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(BB-X) Hiei (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(BB) Yamato (Automated Reloader Mk. II, Yamato Cannon Mk. I)
(CVL) Shouhou (Long-Range Scanners)
(CVL) Houshou (reserve)
(CVN) Souryuu (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement)
(CVN) Akagi (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement Mk. II)