IS Compression: with the Advent of innovators, one strange thing that scientists found was that IS pilots could compress their whole IS unit into a tiny object. The compression and decompression process is of limited use on the battlefield however, the compression and decompression is always couple with a bright flash of light.

Tankery: A new sport that came with the introduction of physically impervious phase shift armor. It is a sport that has high school students driving tanks and armored vehicles against each other, vying for dominance on a set battlefield. All tanks that are used must have been either fielded or have been in the full prototype stage by the end of July 1945. This competition is held internationally at different planets each year. Has become nearly synonymous with high school football in the twentieth century.

-Makings of the Modern World, a textbook for primary school history

October 1, 2256

Port time: 0900

Location: Ground Station, Canterbury Starbase, Mars. Martian Empire

"Well, finally back at port for a couple weeks of leave," Jean says tiredly while stretching. He is in the officer's lounge in the base and for the first time in three months at this time of the day. In the intervening time, the preliminary test results from Marie showed that Mutsu was indeed closely related to him, except that she was a girl, they were about as related as a set of fraternal twins, genetically speaking.

They were scheduled to go to the labs to activate the rest of the tubes and to wake up the rest of the girls in the tubes in a couple days. Meanwhile, most of the crew were going back to their families to visit, including Jean, who lived a short 20 minute drive away from the starbase.

"I guess you don't really have anywhere to go, Mutsu, so why don't you come to my place, my shut-in of a sister needs some outside contact with other people every now and then. She's a great leader, but damn, she sucks at being social, I wonder how she even became the captain of the Tankery team at school."

As he is saying this, Jean grabs a small duffel bag and heads out the door, grabbing the keys of a nearby Jeep that is reserved for Officer's near the sliding door of the lounge. Thankfully, the lounge was empty except the officers from the ship, so that Mutsu was spared the lustful looks of some of the not-so-morally straight officers of some of the ground bases.

Outside, the sky was a bright bronze color, and it was lighting up rather quickly, one of the only real downsides of living on the Martian surface, you had to deal with the daytime sky being constantly red to orange, depending on the weather, and to see fully blue skies, one had to go back to Earth or some other planet in Human territory that had a surface made primarily of water. Mars was mostly desert and only had a small strip of lush green habitat around the equator, where most of the surface liquid water was located.

Despite it being near a small town of Hamptonshire, the road to Jean's house was rather wide open, bypassing the town and going into the small suburbs where most of the people lived. The suburbs were rather old, but not old looking. I you were to look carefully, you would see that every house had one of three base designs, but people had modified their houses so much over the years that the houses looked simply thrown together, rather than being built by one contractor. After driving through the surprisingly winding roads of the suburb, they pull over in front of an old fashioned house, with tall vaulted ceilings that seemed out of place in the cool desert and appeared to belong rather in the Alps of Europe. The windows were large and open, covered only by simply designed curtains waving in the light, warm, breeze. They got out of the car and Jean notices Mutsu, saying:

"We had also better gotten you new clothes, maybe a uniform or something, we can't have you walking around in that all the time, it seems rather… too liberal in revealing skin."

"Well, this was the uniform I was assigned with when I was commissioned," Mutsu responds with a roll of her eyes, "you can modify it mow, as my Admiral is now dead and you and Commodore Zabi are basically my commanding officers now."

"Then we must quickly change your 'uniform', 'cuz you're gonna have a hard time walking around public areas dressed like that," Jean says as they walk up the driveway to the front door.

And Jean was right, Mutsu was basically dressed in a sports bra, her breasts spilling out the chestplate underneath it, all of her midriff fully exposed and she was wearing a very short skirt, only extending several inches into her thigh and barely covering her hips.

Approaching the door, instead of using the house key that Jean pulled out of his pocket, he rings the doorbell. The doorbell rings out with a single loud DOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGG, amplified greatly by the vaulted and angled ceilings. He rings the doorbell four times before they hear locks unlocking and the door swings inward away from them almost too quickly.

"Well Shit, Look Who's Home", The a harsh voice greets them, each word enunciated sharply and clearly as possible, with a hint of sarcasm.

"You had keys and yet you're still ringing the doorbell for style points, BUT YOU HAVE NONE HERE!" she ends, seeming even angrier.

The voice belonged to a rather tall girl,at five foot seven. She had long, glossy, flowing, waist-length black hair held together by a grey hairband. There was one clump of her bangs that met somewhere between her abrasive, almond shaped brown eyes, locked into a near perpetual frown. She was wearing a dull, plain pink hoodie with sleeves rolled up to her elbows and short daisy dukes on her legs that accentuated their length and slenderness.

"Hello again, Nancy," Jean replied with a small smirk, "you seem rather grumpy today, why so angry?"

"You friggin' woke me up from my sleep, I had a long game session with the crew last night, and anyways, who's that?" she said as she motioned towards Mutsu, "I didn't know I had an older sister and why the hell is she dressed like that?" She finally stepped aside to admit her brother and Mutsu into the house.

The house was very cozy on the inside, despite appearing very large on the outside. The living room was covered with bamboo flooring and had five narrow windows on the right side that got taller with the building ceiling, appearing like the "raising the bar" logos from Cellular mobile from the early 21st century. Beyond the stairwell was the kitchen, with three bullet lights hung over a bar style counter. Jean dropped his bag and reached into the small drink fridge below the table. He pulled out a small pitcher of sugarcane juice and three cups.

"Ah, mom can always be relied upon to actually have a good supply of sugarcane juice at any given time of the year,"he said as he took a swig from his glass and slid the other two to Mutsu and nancy, who were sitting across the table from him.

"It's quite a house you have, much larger than that little box that you call home on the ship," Mutsu says.

"You kidding me? that 'box' of yours is the Captain's quarters, I'll throw you into the enlisted bunks if you want to complain about that room being small," Jean fumes.

"So bro," Nancy pipes up, "What kind of misadventures have you been in to find her?" She gestures to Mutsu, "she looks almost exactly like you."

"Sorry Nancy, classified information until further notice," Jean says flatly, "but could you lend her some clothes for the next couple of days? Don't want people to think that she is some sort of slut when she isn't."

"Follow me then, I guess I'll show you around the house while I'm at it."

They go up the stairs and at the landing, there is a short hallway, with four doors. Nancy opens the first one to the left, admitting Mutsu and herself into a small, dark room, but when Nancy flips the light switch on, a whole assortment of anime and manga memorabilia come into view. Posters of great anime from the present and the past line the walls, there are several shelves stuffed chock full of anime figurines, and in the open closet door, lots and lots of cosplay equipment and clothing. from the depths of the walk-in closet, Nancy pulls out a long white turtleneck with thin black stripes and a pair of tight black jeans.

"Here, take it, and make sure you give it back, it's one of the few things that I actually have that aren't my school uniform," Nancy said as she closed the door to her room after shutting down the light.

"You look alot like my sister you know, and have some of the same personality traits as well," Mutsu said to Nancy as they started going back down the stairs.

"Hmmm, I hope your older sister is a great person, like my brother, honestly, we go through the angry at each other thing for the sake of old times, back when I was ten and didn't know any better and he was starting high school. We were like Shiro and Sora from that one anime, No Game No Life from so long ago."

"You are like my sister, maybe someday she can meet you," Mutsu purrs.

As they go back down the stairs, Jean suddenly asks them, "Hey, where's Mom and Dad? Mom's usually home at this time of day from the office."

"They are out on the colonies for a retreat Mom's company put on, they said that I would be fine, you constantly forget that I'm not five years old anymore. I'm seventeen for cryin' out loud," Nancy says with a pout, "you know what? let me go to the mall with you to pick some clothes, and then you two will help me out at the Tankery practice after, former team captain", she placed much emphasis on the word "former".

Two hours later, they were at the town mall, having planned out some ways of purchasing clothing for Mutsu. It was rather hard to find clothes for Mutsu, given the fact that she was tall for a girls and still had a slender figure. In the end, Nancy helped Mutsu to find several sets of assorted T-shirts, jackets, pants, normal shoes (you know, walking around with ship rudder heels all the time is not exactly comfortable), and slightly longer skirts (thankfully, than the one she had been wearing).

After, they went to the Jean and Nancy's high school to begin Tankery practice. Several years earlier, Jean had lead the Hamptonshire Secondary school to victory at the Grand Finals against the defending champions of the cup. That actually was what landed Jean into the Officer's academy and into his first post as Captain of the ship upon graduation.

The school was located at the edge of town. Out away from the primary complex of buildings that made up the classrooms, offices, and the gym, was a single large hangar, It was tall and had a slightly rusted exterior, with the green paint flaking away. most of the windows were turned to the open position to allow air to circulate, lest the inside become musty under the constant blazing Martian sun. It honestly looked more like a sweatshop factory than the hangar of the defending champions of the Tankery tournament.

Inside was a different story though, as Nancy unlocked the double sliding doors and use d the mechanical gate controller to open the doors, the inside was clean and neat, with only ten tanks in a neat line, one tiger tank, two panthers, one centurion 17 pounder, three cromwell late models, and three Churchill black princes, also with the 17 pounder. The hangar interior was neat with equipment boxes to left, and a large ammunition locker to the right side, storing large amounts of 75 and 85 millimeter armor-piercing ammunition.

"Hm, you certainly have made it much neater since I have left," Jean whistles, "and you also acquired several more tanks than what I had in my time."

Too bad the crews weren't as good as they were in your time," Nancy responds in a dull tone, "and oh yea, when you take Mutsu up to the colony starport later, could you take me too?"

Jean, who was inspecting the Tiger, which was not there in his day, suddenly stops, and turns around with a face of surprise, "How did you find out about that, that was highly encrypted classified information."

"I have my ways," Nancy responds with a smirk and a little twinkle in her eye, "but you should take me, I know about as much about them as you do, like how Mutsu is almost a clone of you."

"Well, knowing that I have no real choice but to take you, you little hacking scumbag," Jean throws back at her before turning to Mutsu, "and let me show you around the inside of the tanks, they are quite interesting."

The inside of the tank was filled with pipes, levers, and a great myriad of pipes and other gear such as scopes, flares, and integral ammo racks at the bottom of the tank. The commander had a seat. with the gun sticking between where the legs would be. the gunner was on the right side of the tank and was denoted by a shoulder mount that was synced with the main gun and the coaxial gun by a series of gears. Under the gunner's feet, were two foot pedals that when pressed, allowed the gunner to turn the turret at his discretion.

He pulled Mutsu out of the tank eventually though, because Nancy wouldn't allow him to take the Tiger out and allow Mutsu to fire the Long 88 rifle. The Practice commenced, with being a skirmish that day, a 5 on 5, Jean and Mutsu stood watch over the battle in a nearby control tower for the team, Nancy's team barely won, when their last cromwell lobbed a shot over a sand dune and knocked out the opposing panther.

Several hours later, after they had gone home, had a hearty dinner, and changed into their uniforms (Jean in his officer's uniform, Mutsu into her 'battle dress', and Nancy into her school uniform). Jean uses the jeep to drive them back to the base and to pick up a transport ship and head out to the colonies, where Jean, Mutsu, Marie, and Minerva are scheduled to open the rest of the tubes and to Hopefully find out more about the ship girls.

As they climb out of the atmosphere in a small ferry-like transport, the sky slowly turns from the deep orange color of the Martian late afternoon to the jet black of space. They climb slowly, up past the turbulence and the air into the void of space. They dodge a large public ferry as they continue to make their way to a military base on the Military colony of Phobos, which, as a resource colony, has eaten up much of the asteroid. As they land in the voluminous starport, they notice that not only has the whole task force been berthed there, but also several other ships, notably two small destroyers that Jean recognizes as from Earth and Zimmerit respectively.

As he docks his small transport in one of the small berths and extends the airlock.

"Well, we're here, let's see what we have in store for us today," Jean says quietly to himself as he gets off the pilot's seat and walks into the long hallway that is the berthing terminal. He turns right to go into the base itself. The hallway, which was long, filled with the kind of fluorescent lights that you would find in a hospital.

they walked for a while before they came to the lobby, a large rectangular room with many chairs arranged in neat rows, like an airport and terminals going in different directions. The lobby was unusually empty, made only more obvious by the long rows of empty chairs. Jean had been here before, when he was first assigned to the Gunther Lutjens, and remembered that the place was crowded, people walking in and out of the terminals as ships were docking and departing all at once, but now, the lobby was hauntingly empty, sitting in the back near the exit, with a novel in her hands and her characteristic blood red uniform, was Minerva Zabi.

As they approach her, she suddenly puts her book down and looks up.

"You're late," she say simply.

"We're here an hour early, what do you mean we're late?" Jean responds, his face turning to a confounded look.

"All the people are already here, so last one to arrive is late, and who said you could bring your sister?" Minerva snaps at him.

"She hacked into our transmissions apparently, she was able to decrypt them and consequently found out about the Ship girls."

Minerva lets out a sigh, "whatever," she says simply, "not my fault if you are drafted into the military on the spot when the authorities find out. Follow me"

As they go through the empty halls of the enormous base, Jean notices that the bse is absolutely devoid of people, It was worrying, because Phobos was one of the largest bases in Mars, but instead of asking questions, he chose to keep his mouth shut and trudge on with Minerva. As they round a corner, they see the first people in the base. Two of them are wearing uniforms of the Earth Military, The boy, looked no older than Jean, but his hair was matte black and straight until it curled towards the ends. His eyes were a piercing and deep purple, his Uniform was simple, with no medals pinned on it, it was white with blue accents, and bright golden colored buttons running down the middle. He wore black rimmed glasses that were grey around the sides. There was a camo green beret sitting on his head. what caught Jean's attention was that the person's lapel held five stars, denoting him as the grand admiral of the Earth.

Next to him, was a girl with sky blue, knee-length hair tied into two pigtails, held up by two squares that curiously were not touching any part of her hair. She had soft, almond shaped eyes that were an aqua blue to match her hair. Her uniform was similar to the boy's but it was sleeveless, Black arm warmers with teal trim, and a black pleated miniskirt that also had teal trim. She was wearing a very telltale Captain's insignia on her shoulder lapels

By comparison, the other boy was alone. He had deep brown hair in a bowl cut, an unusually circular face for someone who was not overweight, and was a head shorter than the other boy, His eyes were rather small, but had a slightly lighter shade of brown than his hair. He wore a full black uniform, basically the naval officer uniform of the japanese navy. A belt ran across the short trenchcoat and white buttons ran down one side of his chest. On his head was a Naval Officer's cap, complete with the sakura flower medallion sitting in the middle of the cap, where the Iron cross would sit on a Martian cap.

Last person in the hall was wearing the same blood red uniform as Minerva, but she looked no older than 14, with small inconspicuous hair clips and bobby pins that held her hair out of her face. Her face was the shape of an upside down teardrop, her thin eyebrows and slight features made her seem like a doll. That was the empress of Mars.

Jean, Nancy, and Minerva simultaneously snap into a sharp salute, and Mutsu follows, after a second of confusion.

"Your Highness!" the three of them, sans Mutsu, say loudly.

"Shhhh, don't address me like that here, these guys are old friends of mine, it's fine here, you can be at ease and permission to speak freely" she responds quickly with a slightly embarrassed look, "You must be Jean, Nancy, and Mutsu, I have heard much about two of you anyways, especially with catapulting your school to fame with the tankery competitions."

"Thank you my empress," they respond with a bow.

"Now, I haven't introduced these people to you yet. This is Asano Konata, Admiral of Zimmerit's Reconnaissance fleets," she said while gesturing towards the man in the black uniform.

"This is Richard Lanoe, he is the head of the Earth navy, and his 'sister' Phoenix, she is a person who was born of experiments similar to the ship girls"

"Gentlemen," she continues, with a little sarcasm in the word that leaves in the next sentence, "This is Captain Maxim of HMS Gunther Lutjens, and the first ship-girl that we were able to awaken, Mutsu."

She stops at introducing Nancy, whom she does not know very well, or at all for that matter. But she gestures towards the door behind her, "We need you, Minerva, and Mutsu inside soon, before the rest of them wake up. It should help the confusion. You, there," she said pointing at Nancy, "you go with them. one of those ship girls looks enough like you to be your twin, although she looks to be Jean's age instead."

The sliding door opened, revealing a hospital ward-like interior with beds lined in both directions. In the corner, Marie was sitting, furiously typing away at a computer. Behind her, sat a girl that looked exactly like her, except that she was wearing a one-piece sailor uniform and had black pantyhose instead of a lab coat, orange turtleneck, and tight skirt.

There were a myriad of other girls that were lying comatose on the beds. Mutsu walked up to one and sat on the edge of the bed. The person on the bed looked like Nancy, except much more regal and proper, even though they could only see the face, it was quite obvious, on the foot of the bed, there was a placard that said "Battleship Nagato" to denote who she was and the class of ship she was in.

"They should start to wake up eventually, Captain, I managed to defrost them after awhile playing with the controls of those cryotubes," Marie shouts from the computer.

They were indeed starting to stir. The first one to pop up was one of the destroyers, Shimakaze. She didn't just wake up, she popped out of bed and ran over to Amatsukaze's bed to look at her, almost completely ignoring the four other people gathered around Nagato's bed. she summoned three robot looking things that had twin 5-inch rifles on top of the heads with a :3 plastered on their face. Shimakaze looked around after several minutes and locked her eyes on Mutsu, Jean, and Nancy.

"Who are you guys, and why are were here?" she said rather aggressively, the gun turret pointing towards Jean in particular.

"Umm, that, uhhh, ill tell you later, but first, why are you dressed like that?" Jean responds awkwardly.

It was true, Shimakaze was dressed in a sleeveless sailor uniform with a thong and a tiny miniskirt that made Mutsu's miniskirt look like it was worn by a conservative. With that, Shimakaze really had no response for Jean. He walked over to her and sat on the bed next to her.

"You are in a Martian starbase, I am Captain Jean Maxim, and I was the one who found all of you," Jean slowly said to Shimakaze, who nodded slowly, before jumping up out of Amatsukaze's bed and walking over to Mutsu, inspecting her for any defects before turning to Jean and asking:

"Where is Admiral Shinatose?" She asks with an exasperated look.

"Well, I tell you when everyone else wakes up, I don't want to explain it more times than I need to," Jean says with a sheepish look, "I'd rather get it all done at once."

He tried to eye Shimakaze over again without looking like he was trying to check her out. upon closer inspection. He saw that Shimakaze looked like a miniature Shevonne, with hair that was only tied up with a small hairband that stood up like two bunny ears. The more he looked at Shimakaze the more he thought that….

"We need to get you new clothes first," Nancy blurts out. Exactly what Jean was thinking.

As this is going on, all the other ship girls begin to stir. As their eyes open and their bodies start to get underway, they look around in confusion at first, and then in relief as they see their "ship sisters" around them. They all look as if there was some sort of disaster, and they are seeing their families once more. Jean begins to take a close look at each one and tally up their appearances and memorize their names.

"Sir, are you the admiral?" the one named Nagato asks, "Have you a need for the Combined fleet to defend the people from the Abyssals?"