Monday, April 14th, 2014.
Urakaze's launch day is in five days. Must not forget.
A surprise visit from Seal Team Six today, and a surprise supply drop of more ship equipment. Today's the single biggest supply drop we've received that isn't just normal foodstuffs and other basic, non-military supplies. If only supply drops were like this all the time.
The military supply drop from HQ contained enough weapons to fully stock out the fleet, and then some. So now, all the destroyers have triple torpedo launchers (with the exception of the Kai girls, obviously), and the light cruisers and heavy cruisers their choice of additional armaments like extra 12.7cm or 14cm guns or torpedo launchers, whichever fit their fancy. In addition, Yamato and Amagi especially received some battleship weapons to fill out their empty equipment slots - Yamato took an additional 41cm twin gun mount, while Amagi, because she only came equipped with a single 41cm twin gun mount, took an extra 15.5cm triple gun mount for anti-air fire and an additional set of Type 99 Dive Bombers to complement the set of Type 97 Torpedo Bombers she came with. It's not as important for Amagi to carry recon planes, since our Kai light cruisers can deploy recon planes of their own to make up for Amagi's, and Shouhou has the Long-Range Scanners. The fleet is now fully loaded up and ready to go, and now Urakaze can't ever come up to me and complain about how they're underpowered compared to the veterans.
Seal Team Six's supply drop was as expected, just their usual shipment of new augmentations so that the new ship girls can get equipped with some of their own. No new augmentations this time around, just ones we've already seen before. I asked Losira why we didn't happen to get any new ones this time around, and she told me that they had their hands full working on researching their Abyssal specimens some more to try to get to the bottom of the whole Sector B and Abyssal mystery, presumably to prepare for the end of the war and figure out why the Abyssals were created and the implications of their existence. She'd flown to Okinawa alone, and she'd been up about nineteen hours at that point, meaning that by the time she reached Seal Team Six's base back at the West Coast, she would be well over a day without sleep, so I decided that not bothering her much was the correct course of action to go with and just took the augmentations from her.
Losira also mentioned to me before she left that Seal Team Six was getting ready for a mass Kai 2 operation, meaning that I can send up to five ship girls to receive Kai upgrades and two of the current Kai girls to become upgraded to Kai 2. So this Friday, they were going to fly here to come pick up the girls I've selected to receive those upgrades and return them on the following Monday morning.
Problem is, I don't know who to select to receive the Kai upgrades. I'll probably send Sazanami, seeing that she's been bummed out by Akebono's Kai, but other than her, there aren't any clear candidates or girls who've come to me specifically asking for Kai upgrades. And if I just announced it out of the blue, everyone would want one. That being said, I do think having at least one Kai battleship, one Kai light carrier, one Kai standard carrier, and one more Kai heavy cruiser would be nice.
To my surprise, after lunch, Houshou came to my office and asked me to allow her to sortie with the rest of the fleet. I asked her why, and she responded by saying that she, too, wanted to prepare for Operation Rising Sun and do her part in ensuring its success. I asked her if she was sure about this, that seeing how all the light carriers and standard carriers treated her virtually like a mother to them all, this might not be the greatest of ideas. Houshou insisted. She said that she was considered to be the mother of all Japanese carriers for a reason, and that she would use today's mission to prove it to me.
So I allowed her to join the fleet's ranks and even gave her flagship for today's mission, which she took after I offered it to her. The carriers reacted just about the same way that I expected them to: Akagi nearly slapped me in the face because she thought that I was the one who was forcing Houshou to sortie, and it took about ten frantic minutes for me and Houshou to convince the carriers that Houshou was sortieing with them out of her own accord, not because of any order of my own. Houshou convinced the carriers to let her fight with them, which they reluctantly accepted. I didn't even bother ordering the carriers to escort Houshou as the fleet's VIP; I just told the carriers that they had "execute authority" - fancy military lingo to say that they had permission to do whatever they wanted in combat.
After the fleet geared up, I ordered them to attack the supply lines again at Easy District. But instead of consolidating on their raids and picking up the resources, I ordered them to destroy the resources dropped by Abyssal transports and engage in the "Reverse Tokyo Express". The Tokyo Express was the nickname of the rat transport missions of the Imperial Japanese Navy back during the second world war, and destroyers and other ships transported troops and oil drums and other supplies throughout the Imperial Japanese Empire. So following this logic, the Reverse Tokyo Express is the exact opposite: the fleet is to travel from Easy District to Dog District, hit Dog Three and Four, then go to Charlie District, engage whatever forces they have there, then proceed to Baker District and hit Baker One and Two, then finish the Reverse Tokyo Express at Able District and sink any Abyssal patrol units they found. This was going to be a very tough mission - but with all the upgrades that the fleet now has, I was confident in their ability to carry out this mission. If they were able to pull this one off successfully, the amount of damage that would be inflicted onto Sector B would be staggeringly colossal. The fleet told me that they were up to the challenge.
"I'll show 'em the Nightmare of Solomon, poi!" Yuudachi's words were just before they deployed.
After heading back to my office after deploying the fleet, I found an email from the US Navy.
"To Cmdr. Kevinson:
I am writing to inform you that Col. Kevinson's and Lt. Col. Kevinson's request to hold a military review of the Moebius Four Platoon has been accepted and processed. They are expected to arrive in Okinawa at 1200 hours on Thursday, April 17th, 2014.
-Admiral DuGalle"
God fucking damn it.
I spent a few hours with Error in the kitchens, teaching her how to bake cookies and small cakes on her own. That got me into a baking sort of mood, so I went ahead and baked fruit tarts. I let the anger that I felt from receiving that email from earlier go into my cooking, and I ended up making all sorts of tarts with wild fruity flavors, a bit overboard, admittedly. I tasted one for myself and determined that it was just way too sweet. That's what happens when your mind is on something else when you're doing something that requires a lot of concentration like cooking and baking. After that, Error and I hung out at Shinsengumi together, watching Nichijou on the projector screen with my office laptop and eating tarts and cupcakes and drinking Ramune.
The fleet returned at 2300 hours. Pretty much every single one of the girls got heavily damaged, but somehow, only Yuudachi received critical damage in the form of the loss of her left eye. But today's mission's most critical loss was the fleet's pool of augmentations: the Abyssals finally figured out that the PDA tablet things they've seen the fleet wear for quite some time now were the source of lots of the abilities that they had, so as it turned out, Houshou reported in her post-action mission report that the Abyssals were shooting to destroy the girls' augmentations. Because of this, the fleet was able to complete the Reverse Tokyo Express without any more critical casualties than Yuudachi alone because the Abyssals were too focused on trying to destroy their augmentations instead of shooting the girls themselves. While I'd much rather lose augmentation tablets than ship girls, the fact that this happened right after we received a whole batch of them really fucking sucks, and the new ship girls who just received their augmentations and lost them were especially bummed out. I assured them that I would notify Seal Team Six of this and see if they could send us more to replace the ones the fleet lost today.
Yuudachi seemed proud of her lost eye, though. She said that she'd shown them the Nightmare of Solomon, and that she was going to keep her left eye as it was as a sort of medal. I asked her what she would do if she lost her right eye, and Yuudachi simply told me,
"They won't get my right eye. If they do, they'd all already be dead, poi!"
Well, if you say so, Yuudachi.
Before the fleet went to the bathhouses to repair and wash, I informed them about what Losira had told me earlier this morning, about their plan to have lots of them receive Kai upgrades. Just as I'd expected, half the entire fleet swarmed me like a Zerg player remaxing on nothing but Zerglings. I made it clear that I wanted at least one Kai battleship, light carrier, carrier, and one more Kai heavy cruiser, thus limiting the space for the others. Suzuya was so thrilled by the possibility of receiving a Kai 2 that she dragged me aside and offered me a "personal night battle" if I would select her for one of the two Kai 2 spots. Gee, I wonder what that could mean...
I also informed the fleet about the fact that this Thursday, my parents, who were officers in the US Navy, were going to visit on a military review. At first, the fleet was thrilled - the girls who've taken a liking to me started gossiping about how well they'd present themselves to win my parents' favor.
I didn't like the fact that the fleet was suddenly talking about my parents, so I told them to go dock already and immediately withdrew to my office. The girls kind of figured out that I didn't like my parents, because Shigure, Yuudachi, Samidare, and Harusame followed me to my room first to ask me what was wrong. I told them that I would only tell them after they docked, but when they insisted, I told them that honestly, there really wasn't much for me to explain. They would see it for themselves when they came to visit this Thursday.
The fleet will come to understand why I see Lt. Kevinson and Lt. Col. Kevinson as just two more members of the United States brass - not as my parents.
(DD) Murakumo
(DD) Sazanami
(DD) Samidare Kai (Water Will)
(DD) Inazuma (Automated Reloader)
(DD) Fubuki (Psionic Scrambler Mk. II)
(DD) Akebono Kai (Slayer)
(DD) Wakaba Kai (JDAM Converter, Danger Close)
(DD) Hatsuharu (Danger Close)
(DD) Shigure Kai 2 (Standalone Protocol, Targeting Jammer Mk. II, Kellorian Reactor)
(DD) Yuudachi Kai
(DD) Akatsuki
(DD) Hibiki
(DD) Ikazuchi (Psionic Scrambler Mk. II)
(DD) Harusame
(DD) Hayashimo
(DD) Urakaze (JDAM Converter)
(DD) Yayoi
(DD) Naganami (Ammo Manufacturer)
(SS) I-168 Kai (Lockdown Converter)
(SS) I-401 (Silencer)
(SS) I-58 (Lockdown Converter)
(SS) I-19 (JDAM Converter)
(AS) Taigei (Medical Nano-Bot Dispersal)
(CL) Kitakami Kai (Weapon Pre-Igniter)
(CL) Ooi Kai (Corvid Reactor)
(CL) Akashi (Targeting Jammer Mk. II)
(CL) Ooyodo
(CL) Yahagi
(CL) Kiso Kai (Golden Eye/Crackshot)
(CL) Sendai (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(CL) Abukuma
(CL) Kuma
(CL) Tama (Atalantian Reactor)
(CL) Noshiro
(CA) Takao
(CA) Atago (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(CA) Suzuya Kai (Silencer Mk. II, Heavy Repeater, Moebius Reactor)
(CA) Aoba
(CA) Nachi
(CA) Kumano
(BB-X) Kirishima
(BB-X) Hiei (Automated Reloader Mk. II, Behemoth Reactor)
(BB) Yamato (Yamato Cannon Mk. I, Fusion Core)
(CC/CVN) Amagi
(AVP) Akitsushima (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement)
(CVL) Shouhou (Long Range Scanners)
(CVL) Houshou (Long Range Scanners Mk. II)
(CVL) Zuihou (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement Mk. II)
(CVN) Souryuu (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement)
(CVN) Akagi
(CVN) Hiryuu (Icarian Reactor)
(CVN) Taihou (Icarian Reactor)