Wielding three glow sticks like claws in between her clenched fingers, Shiranui lowered herself effortlessly into the opened steel hatch as the three other destroyers looked down at her, Sendai holding the steel rope that was tied around Shiranui's waist as she felt around with her gloved hand and finally clamped her fingers around a cold hard handle of sorts.
Shiranui found herself pulling herself towards a ship ladder welded into the wall, finding her footing on the rungs as she swung her hand around to both illuminate her surroundings and clear the dust that permeated the air as she lowered herself into the Abyss.
Her brown school shoe finally hit the hard floor and the destroyed hatch plate at the base of the ladder, a victim of an explosive breach charge to circumvent the issue of needing specialized equipment to remove the weld metal, the Kagerou-Class destroyer using her feet to clear what remained of the steel hatch from the landing area as she untied the steel rope from the carabiner clip on her utility belt.
Shiranui got off the steel ladder as she reached for her 12 cm Single Gun Cannon in order to provide some form of protection against whatever booby traps the Abyssals might have laid to kill trespassing ship girls.
Shiranui secured the area as she checked around cautiously for traps while Arare and Kagerou lowered themselves into the mystery hatch to join her, Sendai sitting right outside the hatch so as to watch over their surroundings to make sure that the hatch stayed open and didn't accidentally slam shut on them or something.
They also needed someone to relay messages between the two surveying ship girls and the three destroyers who were uncovering the Abyssal secret base, since it was hard for radio signals to penetrate deep underground and through thick Abyssal steel.
Shiranui tossed a few glow sticks into the distance, one of them bouncing off a metallic structure of sorts as the delayed echo reverberated throughout the dead-silent base, the three of them having turned on their ship girl modes to prepare for anything.
Kagerou was the one who took point as she started walking forward, lighting up a few glow sticks of her own as she made her way through the underground facility and dropping the glow sticks occasionally to provide a trail back to the steel hatch as their green-tinted luminescent night-vision eyes picked up the inactive equipment in their immediate surroundings.
There were steel assembly arms hanging from the ceiling and lining the sides of a halted assembly line, ghost-like limbs of an arcane design with bundles of exposed wires lining the machinery.
The metallic construction tools were frozen in time as their lifeblood that was electricity had been cut from the facility, and were threatening to stretch down and grab them with their open steel claws, all overlooking one of their own that had fallen onto the steel walkway and rendering it mostly inaccessible.
It wasn't out of the question to assume that the facility they were currently in was clearly used at a point in time for production, metal shavings and pieces of dark Abyssal armor littering the factory floor and uncleaned by the Abyssals before leaving.
Torn wires snaked down each module that sat atop the torn assembly line at regular intervals, grounded to the partially destroyed conveyor belt and created to hold a now non-existent unit up as the assembly line previously worked to assemble the individual parts they held, several of them toppled over like fallen dominoes.
An acrid stench of motor oil and metal filled the air, a testament to its true purpose before its demise, the Abyssals likely having expected this facility to be well-hidden enough with the hatch being welded shut, Shiranui suddenly feeling rather thankful for the breaching charges provided by the Coordinators, just one of many gadgets they had to carry on every mission to make sure they could overcome most obstacles like locked doors.
They had thrashed everything that was in this facility to a degree where everything was still recoverable, but never came back to this island to reoccupy this facility as it was still a hotly-contested island that no one side occupied for long.
Shiranui could hear Kagerou's distinct voice ringing out through her grainy-green night-vision mode that illuminated her world, not unlike the green goggles utilized in the Wizard of Oz to make her world appear green as Kagerou looked back at them and stated.
"Well, we can't just look around and simply speculate as to whatever they've made here.
I think we may need to hack a few computers to find out what they were planning through their servers."
But Arare pointed out something that they may have failed to consider, seeing that the Abyssals weren't the kind to simply leave their bases unattended.
"I'm rather suspicious that they Abyssals don't have at least some traps in place, and if even they didn't, I think they may at least be aware of our presence here.
I don't believe we have the luxury of time anymore if they are indeed aware of our presence on this island, and we may only have the element of surprise left with the radar-cancelling pikes installed."
Shiranui nodded, seeing the logic in that as she considered the probability of them being found out and trying to rethink their moves.
"Well, the Abyssals might still send that patrol fleet here, just earlier than we expected if we did indeed trip some sort of alarm entering this factory, and they might send an armada here to stop us from leaving this place.
But the good thing is that this island's on the edge of the Safety Zone, so we still have some time to act, just that our schedule might've been pushed forward and our window to escape narrowing if they indeed want to bring an entire Abyssal Fleet to greet us."
Looking to Arare and Kagerou, she directed them as to what they were going to do.
"Arare, give me the laptop and go tell Sendai to notify Chitose and Goya to watch out for the Abyssal patrol coming earlier than expected, and also get her to activate the radar-jamming pikes to hide our presence.
Kagerou and I will search the rooms for any sort of recoverable intelligence before the ambush to find anything we can bring back to the Coordinators."
Arare nodded, taking off the sling bag to hand over to Shiranui as Kagerou began looking for a server room to access the facility's data cache and extract whatever they could from their servers before the Abyssals brought the hammer down on them, Arare plodding off towards the source of the dimly illuminated squarish hatch where Sendai kept watch.
Shiranui opened up the sling bag to bring out, unfold and boot up the laptop that was used by the Infiltration Fleet to hack into the Abyssal servers and extract everything that was of use to them, generally disposable should the Abyssals decide to leave a virus behind in their disconnected servers to fry their laptops in order to slow them down.
Setting down her 12 cm Single Gun Cannon to pull out the various paraphernalia needed to accomplish their task, she could easily make out Arare's soft voice speaking up to a dark-haired light cruiser whose head was peeking down the hatch as Kagerou's light steps resounded throughout the empty facility, connecting the various cables and USB sticks in a practiced routine.
She suddenly heard a large banging noise ringing throughout the facility a moment after Kagerou's footsteps stopped, sounding not unlike an explosion in the confined spaces of the ringing facility, causing the pink-haired destroyer jto ump upon hearing that.
Shiranui's hands were itching to reach for her 12 cm Cannon to check out the commotion, but her sister ship's voice calling out through the darkness stayed her hand somewhat.
"I'm OK, just kicking down doors to breach them.
Am I being too loud?"
Followed by Shiranui and Arare's exasperated,
"Yes."
To which Kagerou thankfully took into account as the next door was opened normally, Shiranui almost able to hear the clicking of the door mechanism as the laptop whirred upon coming to life, finally displaying the image she desired as the infiltration program was already booted up and ready to run.
Shiranui turned off her built in night-vision ability to prevent the computer's LED screen from blinding her and reaching into her waist bag to bring out, wear and turn on her head-strap flashlight.
She heard Kagerou shouting out to prepare Arare and herself for the next deafening noise that was about to engulf the underground facility, the name ship of the Kagerou-Class destroyers calling out to them.
"I'm using another breaching charge!
Y'all might want to cover your ears for this!"
Shiranui plugged her ears with her gloved index fingers, her superhuman ears still clearly picking up the ear-splitting controlled explosion of the breaching charge, this time considerably muffled by the material of her gloves and Shiranui having braced herself mentally for it as she lowered her hands to take in the sharp echoes still present throughout the facility.
Shiranui made her way towards where she believed the breaching sound to have originated from after holstering her Cannon and picking up the laptop, occasionally spotting a dropped glow stick to mark Kagerou's path as she moved down a corridor of sorts.
She was warily watching every opened door she came across to watch for enemies Kagerou might have missed, watching the destroyed computers and shredded papers littering the floor and untouched by even the wildlife of the island and perfectly preserved to mark the final activities of the Abyssals that occupied these rooms.
And the fact that all the ship girl signatures of her teammates were now wiped off her radar upon the radio wave-jamming pikes being activated just made her that little bit more paranoid, her free hand hovering over her holstered Cannon out of habit, having been through a few sticky situations in the past where it paid to have a quick trigger finger to respond to unexpected threats.
But there was no need for that, the silhouette standing at the end of the room next door resembling her sister positioned in the middle of a wrecked server room, Kagerou spinning around quickly and tightening her grip on her own 12 Cm Cannon, but the both of them relaxed and nodded to each other as Shiranui approached the end of the room with the laptop in hand.
Shiranui turned down the brightness of her head-strap flashlight as she stepped over the demolished steel door that she assumed to have been previously locked to require a breaching charge, and could make out Kagerou jerking her thumb back to point at the thrashed computer server that was left unattended.
And although it was obviously dark, Kagerou had likely found the one server that seemed as though whatever was within wasn't completely demolished, and was thus recoverable when connected to their powerful yet disposable laptop.
Kagerou leaned down to grab the cover of the deformed access panel before ripping it clean off with her superhuman strength, tossing it to one corner and causing the impact to produce a clanging sound that resonated throughout the room, ignored by both the Kagerou sisters as they looked down at the busted electronic hardware within.
Kneeling down and looking through the torn wires, Shiranui reached in and rummaged around until she felt the hard, cool touch of a motherboard, gently prying it out and unplugging the various cables connected to it.
Retrieving a few USB cables and an Ethernet cable connected to the laptop, Shiranui plugged them into their respective ports and activated the hacking program to access its partially destroyed content and attempt to recover whatever they could.
Looking at the few lines of code running down the black computer windows and the few images that popped up on the screen for an instant before being covered up by other images, all of it almost as mysterious as hieroglyphs to her as she looked back at Kagerou.
"I think this might take a while, so I think it might be wise to use this time to split up and look through the various shredded papers in the other rooms for any valuable information."
Kagerou nodded in agreement, the both of them now having head strap flashlights on their foreheads to prepare for the manual search and reorganization of the pieces of paper on the floor and preparing to play a game of 52 pickup in different rooms to salvage the paper pieces.
And after that, it was the tedious job of putting the pieces back together like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with the help of clear tape to help hold the pieces together, Shiranui's ship girl mode helping her out a lot as she utilized her heightened pattern recognition skills and improved memory to remember each piece to put back a small folder's worth of material in about five minutes.
Getting back up from her kneeling position, Shiranui walked back into the room where the laptop was still running, Kagerou coming up behind her to display her own recovered file as the laptop was pretty much finished.
And when the laptop was done, Shiranui uncoupled the cables to briskly walk back towards the opened hatch to rendezvous with the night battle light cruiser, Shiranui worrying that things might be going to shit faster than she thought if the Abyssals really did leave behind some sort of tripwire system to detect metallic humanoids trespassing in the facility.
Looking back up at the Sendai-Class light cruiser's face, Shiranui stored her laptop in her sling bag and slapped her hand on the metal rungs to climb back up to the surface and take in a breath of fresh ocean air instead of the stale, aged air that permeated the underground facility.
Sendai and Arare helped them up from the opening in the ground, the two sisters dusting themselves off after handing over everything to the light cruiser, who was now more energetic at night, yet contained her enthusiasm as she skimmed through everything quietly.
Shiranui looked to the skies as she noted a lone reconnaissance plane lazily flying through the air and patrolling the skies closer to the Pacific Ocean, likely trying to detect any incoming Abyssals that came in from the large sea.
Shiranui looked down at the seated Arare as she asked in a concerned tone, trying to estimate how fast the Abyssal patrol fleet was going to reach the island before the backup fleet arrived with Ru-Class and Ta-Class battleships to crush their stealth-based fleet.
"Have the Abyssals arrived yet?
We might need to prepare for the ambush and interrogation right now if the Abyssals detected our presence on the island simply because we discovered and entered that base."
Arare shook her head, explaining the situation which had likely already changed for the worse.
"We told Goya and Chitose to pull out all the stops to keep an eye out for the Abyssals, and Chitose told us that she managed to send out a reconnaissance plane to scout the area passively.
We can't communicate with Chitose right now since she's now out on the ocean..."
Tapping the side of her head with her right index finger, Arare explained the ways that the seaplane tender would try to notify them.
"If the recon plane detects Abyssals, it'll fly back towards Chitose in a straight line.
But if it can't detect any incoming Abyssals before going back to Chitose to refuel, it'll fly in a loop above us before landing."
Sendai was now looking at the two recovered files after handing the laptop and sling bag back to Arare to handle as she had one file clamped under her armpit, furiously flipping through Shiranui's file as she exclaimed.
"What the hell have the Abyssals been making to need so much resources?
I mean, I think it's safe to assume that the Abyssals may some sort of bottomless resource pit to spawn so many Abyssals, but what the hell, man!"
Shiranui knelt down on one knee to look at the cover page that Sendai was holding up for them all to see.
The three destroyers all looked as Sendai cycled through the papers, leaning in so that they could get a clearer look at the graphs and statements on the papers that were spread out on the ground before them, detailing a wide variety of operations from receipts to resource transfers via Wa-Class transport ships, to scraps of blueprints for something that was undecipherable.
Arare was looking through the few recovered pictures and computer documents recovered from the destroyed server, and the things she saw seemed to corroborate with Sendai's statements.
"These documents were orders from someone high up in the chain of command of the Abyssals.
It seems that whoever up top used this island as a means of transport and creation of Abyssal units while we were concentrated on securing our naval routes to Europe via the Suez Canal.
It could mean that they somehow knew of our intentions and tried to get what they could out of this facility before destroying it."
Shiranui looked at one of the images that were presented on the screen, stopping the slide show to compare the image of a rudder to an as of yet unknown ship with the same rudder that was shown in the partially recovered blueprints, along with two letters.
'Fl...'
Shiranui's mind was racing to try and identify the ship class from the only visual cue they had, guessing.
'Fletcher?
Florida?'
Sendai now placed her gloved hand on the restored cover page.
The Abyssals, efficient as computers, had never really taken up on giving their operations grandiose names. This meant that the Abyssals had held this particular subject of significant importance, as the name on the cover not only echoed the scale of this project, but also sounded of a promise of things to come.
The name on the cover was '啓示', translated to 'Revelation', or 'Enlightenment'.
An alternate translation was 'Apocalypse'.
The four ship girls stared down at the puzzle pieces, trying to piece together everything with what they currently had on hand.
But Kagerou got up and patted herself down as she remarked on the situation.
"Geez, man, we're the Infiltration Fleet, not the Thinking and Brooding Fleet!
I think we need to get back to the cove where we landed on to prepare ourselves to sortie in an instant.
So how about making our way back instead of sitting near this god-forsaken hole here and getting a splitting headache looking at these things?"
The group of ship girls nodded, and the four of them made their way back to the cove that was located inland on the west section of the island and was covered by the radio wave-blocking pikes, which would mean that their exit from the island was pretty much covered and gave them the element of surprise against the patrol fleet.
The Abyssal patrols were pretty varied in their patrols throughout the seasons and the days of the week.
However, through patience, the Coordinators had managed to observe some level of repetition in their movement and patterns, as well as some frequented hot-spots.
Such information would surely have come in useful in the past.
But this was the present, and the Coordinators had been trying to capture a live, sentient Abyssal to interrogate for information about their activities and some strange observations observed around the world.
However, they all had pre-programmed mental self-destruct modules installed in them to be activated upon the possibility of capture to prevent themselves from being at the mercy of their captors, and could be toggled and reset with a grace period of 20 seconds to confirm the kill order, self-destructing almost instantaneously.
For the first few months, the few humanoid Abyssals they've tried to capture, who could understand and communicate in the human language have all committed mental suicide along with the frying of their hard drives and central processing unit that was located down their spinal columns, making interrogation nigh-impossible.
But they persisted in their research and efforts, and through studying the programming of the Abyssals, they managed to partially crack the code that guided their thought processes, and created an experimental liquid full of nano-machines that would temporarily stop the self-destruct module from being activated.
Although untested, they were certain that it would at least work in practice.
The downside? It had to be injected, preferably close to the nape of the neck for maximum effect. And the Abyssals would likely learn how to counter it quickly, likely making it a one-time McGuffin.
That was the second objective of the Infiltration Fleet, to test out the effectiveness of the experimental vial and also to obtain information from a captured Abyssal when the Abyssal patrol fleet arrived at the island.
Sifting through the schedules of their patrol routes and schedules surrounding the island as well as the landmarks that they would visit to check on their turf, they finally decided on an Abyssal Carrier Wo-Class as the target.
This was because she had higher clearance than the rank-and-file heavy cruisers and torpedo cruisers, but was easier to capture than a battleship Ta-Class or Ru-Class, who had enough firepower to fight back long enough for the self-destruct sequence to activate, and fatally wound someone with their immense firepower.
The carrier was simpler to capture due to her specialization in long range-combat and mediocre firepower at close range.
They simply had to ambush the patrol under the cover of night.
The island wasn't very large, but still consisted of a small hill, a cove, a small cave overlooking the ocean and the island was covered by some foliage and trees that populated the island.
Aside from the Abyssal showing particular interest in this island, its small size was an important factor in it being chosen due to the shorter distance to traverse the length of the island, which meant the prototype radio wave-jamming pikes could be installed faster around the island.
The fact that they knew that there was a small cave which could double as a spot to hide the Abyssal worked in their favor, seeing that the Infiltration Fleet would find whatever the Abyssals hid on the island, defeat the patrol fleet and interrogate the Wo-Class before getting out of there in record time.
It was also located on the edge of the Safety Zone, and any Abyssal backup fleet sent to kill the ship girls on the island and investigate the disappearance of their Abyssal patrol fleet would still have to take a while to get to the island should they decide to bring out the big guns, which would give the Infiltration Fleet some time to interrogate the captured Abyssal if they succeeded.
The Infiltration Fleet was now shrouded by the shadows, under the cover of the cloudy night as predicted by the weather forecast.
The moon was a double-edged sword at night when it illuminated the way at best, and at worst, eliminating any chance of a stealth-based approach to situations.
Hence new moons, rainy or cloudy nights were preferable during stealth missions or escapes, and a clear sky with a full moon at night for a patrol or a recovery mission.
The ship girls moved out as per their internal clocks indicated,
'2 April 2015
1.15 a.m.'
They spotted the incoming patrol fleet coming in earlier than scheduled, consisting of a To-Class light cruiser, 2 I-Class destroyers, a Ne-Class heavy cruiser, and the Flagship Wo-Class carrier.
The Infiltration Fleet predicting that the Abyssals might have detected their presence in the secret facility and would immediately respond paid off in the end, the Abyssal patrol fleet arriving earlier than their schedule planned for to search for the enemies detected in the area, the Infiltration Fleet used to adapting their plans or outright improvising whenever the Abyssals responded with curve-balls of their own.
Fortunately, the experimental pikes that were mounted across the island formed a 'dead zone' where the Abyssal radar couldn't penetrate, blocking their radar from detecting the other side of the island in a small arc to also serve as camouflage.
This drew their attention as they discussed whether or not to go ashore to investigate this recent phenomenon as well as to find the ship girls likely hiding on the island.
What they failed to account for was that the ship girls had already prepared their equipment and were laying in wait, sailing out from the cove to slowly hug and sneak along the coast to maintain the element of surprise, the shadows of the cloud-filled night blanketing them and covering their approach.
As they spotted the Abyssals attempting to go ashore, they opened fire and dumped their torpedoes into the water, encircling the posse that surrounded the flagship while cornering and sandwiching the Abyssal Fleet between the shore and their incoming torpedoes.
The Abyssals, regardless of class, could all submerge and escape back into the Abyss.
However, they were too close to the coast, and the waters were too shallow for them to consider that as a viable means of escape.
The Abyssal Ne-Class was the first to go, blocking the initial salvo from the ship girls by jumping in front of the torpedo salvo, killing it instantly as the torpedoes detonated upon contact with her body.
Her gun turrets, twin tails that snaked out of her rear, was firing rapidly even in death, clipping Chitose in the shoulder and moderately damaging her.
The To-Class light cruiser, a twisted amalgamation of three black metallic, beast-like mouths and two pale arms that were stitched together and expertly weaponized to project whatever sick aesthetic tastes its creator held, was firing at anything that moved, including at the ship girls in the water who remained at a distance from the shore to shell their enemies without hitting their High Value Target.
A set of jaws on the To-Class seemed to roar and communicate in growls, its teeth gnashing together to create screeching noises as it seemed to rally the last two I-Class destroyers into action while laying down cover fire.
The destroyers followed suit, the I-Class destroyers trying their best to propel themselves forward against the waves that were crashing against the shoreline, unhinging their jaws to fire at the Infiltration Fleet.
The Wo-Class was busy preparing her planes for combat, also possessing shoulder-length white hair with pale skin and was wearing a large, black pod atop her head, a freakish abomination of an accessory to wear.
It sat atop the Wo-Class's head, with its large deformed mouth and two 'eyes' that doubled as air vents to discharge exhaust. Two double barreled turrets were joined at its sides while several tentacles snaked down, extra appendages to protect its owner in a melee combat.
The humanoid Wo-Class herself had emerald-green eyes, with a collar that seemed to be the lower jaw of some unknown beast, with its pearl-white teeth and black gums.
A black cape shielded the back of the Wo-Class while she wore black leggings beneath her lean and pale torso, held up by a few pieces of armor.
Holding a black cane and wearing black high heels, the monochrome and stony-faced carrier wordlessly communicated with her top through a cable connected to the back of her neck, the pod's deformed mouth screeching open to summon black-and-white beak-shaped planes, each with an exhaust hole on its top and several turrets on its undercarriage.
They swooped down to bomb and fire at the ship girls, who dodged the payload with varying levels of success.
Some of the ship girls were hit by the Abyssal machine guns that were cycling through their gun barrels in rapid-fire mode, sustaining light damage in the process.
The ship girls decided to close the gap, gathering around the remaining Abyssal Fleet who were still putting up a fight as the ship girls tightened the noose around them.
As another Abyssal destroyer was sunk, the Wo-Class deduced that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill infiltration and an attempt to wipe the Abyssal patrol out, but a deliberate attempt to eliminate her security detail after luring her to the island and were trying to capture her for interrogation after seeing them all deliberately try not to hit her.
As she discarded her pod top to reduce weight for the eventual chase, a metallic tube was uncoupled from the nape of her neck to disconnect and discard the black pod.
The pod and the cable fell into the sea as she started to run towards the shore, the ship girls screaming to 'get that bitch before she goes full Nazi-cyanide-pill on us'.
They emptied their clips into the two remaining Abyssals, not even looking back as they discarded their boat slippers in a hurry and barreled down the beach after the clumsy Abyssal Wo-Class, who was too preoccupied with escaping to take off her high-heels, attempting to put some distance between them for the self-destruct sequence to activate.
Being a nocturnal ship girl, the active Sendai-class light cruiser was leading the chase and kicking up sand as she ran, but even running at her fastest with needle in hand to stop the self-destruct sequence upon injection, she was certain that she wasn't going to catch up to the Wo-Class, who had a pretty large lead despite the Abyssal stumbling several times and getting caught up in her fluttering cape, allowing them to close the gap considerably.
Finally, as a resounding gunshot pierced the air, the Abyssal was thrown forward, a wound opening as though struck on the left shoulder, falling face-first into the sand and dropping her cane.
Sendai was absolutely focused on her mission, reaching the fallen Abyssal, finding the nape of the neck atop her black cape with a hole for the cable of the black headdress to be inserted for mental transmission of signals, and stabbed the needle into a location on her neck.
Injecting the contents into the Abyssal, the Wo-Class shuddered, and then convulsed as the nanites began to affect her system, before her muscles finally loosened after a good 15 seconds.
Sendai removed the needle, and turned the Abyssal around to lie in a prone position, uncertain of both the effectiveness of the vial and her timing before she heard the weak Abyssal croak out in agony,
[…Wo…]
She smiled and looked up to see her arriving teammates, panting as the adrenaline of the battle and chase rushed through them, and were covered with specks of sand and blood on their uniforms due to the kicking up of sand and the Abyssal machine gun bullets hitting them and causing the latter.
Kagerou was holding her 12 cm Single Gun Cannon between her hands, with a smoking barrel that was pointed down at the paralyzed Abyssal, with a shit-eating grin on her face as she announced:
"It's just been revoked!"
Dragging the Wo-Class back into the island into the small cave wasn't the hard part, especially since there were six of them.
The important part was doing so in a way that wouldn't upset the injuries of the ship girls, who had certainly sustained casualties.
The second most important part was the tight schedule they were on, when you considered that they had likely sent out an SOS signal to the Abyssal home base, and reinforcements were on the way if that were the case, estimated to be about half an hour from now and likely half that time since they had discovered the secret Abyssal facility.
They came here to gather intelligence, not to do battle with an armada.
The Infiltration Fleet was busy dressing the wounds of those injured in the skirmish, including the injured Wo-Class that they captured.
They didn't want her bleeding out on them, after all.
The Wo-Class was regarding them with surprise, especially when she saw them dressing her gunshot wound.
She was silent the entire time, looking as though she was holding her tongue to avoid setting them off.
She didn't resist the cable ties that doubled as makeshift handcuffs on her wrists, the vial having taken effect and rendering her unable to fight back temporarily.
The silence also meant that she wouldn't give the ship girls any extra reason to make the ordeal worse for herself even though the Abyssal seemed as though she had already prepared herself for the worst.
Finally, Chitose had recovered enough to barely send out and oversee one recon plane as the bullet had hit her collarbone, and repairing the wound was the higher priority of the Fairies than reconnaissance.
Goya was patrolling the ocean, keeping out for the reinforcements that might approach the island from either the depths or the surface of the ocean, Goya's underwater scouting abilities watching out for the former as the refueled reconnaissance plane took care of the latter.
Kagerou had returned to the fallen Abyssals to reinforce the 'double tap' rule, and emptied another shell into them to make sure they were well and truly dead.
She single-handedly completed the required minimum to help the Fairies clean and prepare the ship girl sortieing equipment for them all to sail home safely.
Right now, she was patrolling the ocean surface for signs of the Abyssals and as a second pair of eyes.
The cave that they sat in was lighted up by some glow-sticks, carried in Sendai's pockets in preparation for the sortie.
They were sorted out and evenly spaced to maintain a certain level of luminosity in the near pitch-black cave, the glow-sticks glowing a sick green and casting eerie shadows as they prepared for the eventual interrogation.
Arare sat across the Abyssal, looking down at the laptop and pulling up the correct files for the interrogation, since there were a few things that happened around the world that was confirmed to be the work of the Abyssals.
Shiranui sat beside the Wo-Class, who was sitting further into the cave, Shiranui holding up her 12 cm Single Cannon pistol while Sendai completed the ship girl trio in the cave, wielding a rare Anti-Abyssal knife for them to protect themselves with should the need arise.
Sendai decided to get the ball rolling, as the clock was ticking.
She opened with,
"You understand us, don't you?"
The Wo-Class simply stared, before replying.
[Wo.]
Causing Shiranui to snap, and rammed the handle of her pistol into the Wo-Class's temple with vigor, the Abyssal falling to the ground.
She straddled the Wo-Class and pointed the barrel at the affected area, demanding with an intense stare that promised nothing but pain if the Abyssal refused to comply.
"Don't mess with us.
We listened in on some of your communications, and you speak in various human tongues, wherever you're stationed at.
If you say 'Wo' again, this bullet is going into your skull."
Pointing the muzzle of the Cannon into the left eye of the supine Wo-Class, Shiranui continued.
"I know my shell can't penetrate your armored skin, but I don't think your eye possesses the same armor to protect it from my cannon.
So that means I can, and will, pull the trigger to get you to talk.
Don't test my patience."
The Wo-Class wasn't exactly injured from the blow, but she seemed to consider Shiranui's glare, Sendai's face palm, and Arare's blank look finally deciding to choose wisely and to open up communications by stating,
[…I understand.
And don't do such pointless things, little destroyer.
It'll do nothing but hurt yourself in the process.]
The enraged destroyer closed her eyes, counted to 10 to calm herself down out of habit and got off the hostage, pulling her up back to her original sitting position to resume their interrogation.
The Wo-Class decided to take her chances by asking,
[Why aren't you torturing me?
You even dressed my wound, and even though it made sense to ensure that I would not die in the middle of the interrogation, this seems to be a risky move, due to the fact that I could fight back.]
The three ship girls simply stared, Sendai was cringing with the mere thought of torture, Shiranui furrowed her eyebrows, and was looking as if she was trying and failing to decipher the words of the Abyssal.
Even Arare had an eyebrow raised in question.
Sendai tried to make sense of the previous statement, asking.
"I-Isn't that what you Abyssals do, experimentation, torture and the like?"
The Wo-Class shook her head, clarifying.
[No, we simply interrogate to obtain information, and stop when we are done.
Experimentation is only done when we need something tested, nothing more.
Torture is a clumsy and ineffective method of information gathering, we would rather have you work for us as prisoners-of-war with bomb collars to enforce compliance, or Abyssalization to turn you into one of us.]
The Wo-Class continued, the buzz of the recon plane still barely audible from outside the cave.
[We have studied up on your human masters, and it is known that they torture and violate the dignity of their fellow beings and us Abyssals outside of official duty as a means of self-gratification.
And you ship girls do so to us out of the concept of revenge, which is almost alien to us.
The corpses we recovered, and your combined history, were enough proof of your…savagery.]
The Wo-Class delivered the last line with a hint of venom that leaked into her monotonous voice, her usually-impassive eyes narrowing and taking on a flinty look, clearly indicating the works of man and ship girls in the past.
Shiranui noticed her change of tone, and held her pistol closer to herself to warn the Abyssal not to try anything funny.
Sendai tried to cut in to clarify the situation, stating,
"B-But you know, there are rights that were given to us, to protect us from harm by them humans, you know?"
As the Abyssal shot back calmly,
[Yes, but that only protects you ship girls, no?
We Abyssals are not protected by the human Geneva Conventions, because, by definition, we are not human.
Hence, we would rather kill ourselves before surrendering and being at your mercy.
And even humans do not stand by their Conventions all the time, so we saw no reason to hold back against any of you.]
Shiranui sighed, creased her eyebrows in anger and raised her weapon to point at the ship girl's head, cocking back the trigger and announcing,
"Look, I know that stuff happened, and that we did shit in the past that would get us court-martialled and scrapped by today's standards.
But I'd go ask you to cry yourself a river, build yourself a bridge and get over it.
We've suffered losses and abuse, too.
Now, we're not going to do anything bad to you, but don't think of our compassion as a weakness.
We're here for answers, and unless you want to suffer before answering, I suggest you just tell us what we need to know, and we'll be on our way."
The Wo-Class regarded her with interest, answering,
[Very well.]
Shiranui simply stared, with her cocked gun still in hand, nonplussed.
Arare turned the laptop to face the Abyssal, the screen displaying digital photo on its screen, depicting a ruined island with cracked and upturned earth radiating from the epicenter of an unknown blast of sorts that resulted in a small crater being formed on the ground, web-like crevices formed by the detonation at ground zero.
The island was barren and devoid of life aside from a few flattened and uprooted trees in the next few photos, lying parallel to the ground and their leafless branches stretching towards the sea that surrounded the island, as through the plants themselves were attempting to reach out and crawl towards the sea, blown down by an immense shock wave that rocked the island at some point in time and blew off their leaves with a mighty huff.
Sendai narrated the situation to the captured Abyssal,
"A few months ago, Australian government surveillance detected one hell of a shock wave from this island off the Tasman sea, near the South-Western end of the Pacific Ocean, and a sound wave that resulted from it threw off their radar and wireless communications in the area for a good couple of hours.
The subs we sent there to investigate found no ignition source nor any charred earth, which meant that this wasn't a conventional explosives test.
What was it that you were testing here? Some sort of super-sonar and radio wave jammer of sorts?"
Sendai waved the torpedo that was in her hand around, to gesture to the Abyssal to answer.
And after a short while, the Wo-Class replied.
[My best guess is that this might be an acoustic weapon of sorts.
I have nothing more to comment on the matter.]
Holding her 'Thinker' pose, she nodded for Arare to move on to the next picture. Arare leaned forward and pressed the Right Arrow Button on the laptop, the next picture showing a blurred satellite shot that showed the bird's-eye view of an island on the left of the screen.
On the right was the same ocean, except the island had disappeared, the barest hints of a few rocks jutting out from the ocean, as though the island had been the focus of a Houdini-level disappearing trick.
Another explanation was that it had been wiped off the face of the earth.
Sendai explained the sight on the laptop.
"This was from 2 years ago.
At around 1050 hours, energy levels spiked around this particular island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
There was an insane security detail that surrounded the test site, like, 4 princesses and several dozen battleships at the time of this event.
What were you testing, some kind of bomb? Or…"
[Not a bomb, a gun.]
Another heavy silence filled the air as the Wo-Class deadpanned.
Everyone tried to wrap their head around the Wo-Class's statement, about an experimental island-destroying gun being developed by the Abyssals.
Even the Yamato-Class Cannon turrets, unofficially crowned the most powerful guns in the world, could only severely injure battleships and one-shot them if lady luck was smiling down on them.
Sendai had her eyes widened in shock and near disbelief of the words coming from the mouth of the Abyssal, if not for the all-too-real reality of the Abyssal's enigmatic means of achieving anything they set out to do.
Arare and Shiranui were starting to sweat, the latter looking as if she was calculating the odds of such an experimental weapon being completed ever since the test in the Pacific Ocean two years ago.
Shiranui narrowed her eyes in expertly-contained fury, and gestured with her gun, warning in a growl.
"Stop trying to stall for time.
How do you know that? For all you know, it could have been a fusion bomb, isn't that the more powerful version of an atomic bomb?"
Their hostage simply shook her head, adamant about her point as she tried to explain.
[No.
We already have nuclear bombs ready to be deployed.
We simply didn't see the need to, since we are still at an impasse in terms of progress in the war and we see that things are going in our favor.]
A shudder ran down their steel spines, as the three ship girls wondered what would happen if the Abyssals had decided to use the nukes to wipe them out.
No more ship girls, no more civilization.
Sendai rubbed the bridge of her nose, wondering how to proceed with this new information, that they all reminded themselves, was not entirely reliable.
Shiranui tried to remind herself that it could be a scare tactic, to try to intimidate them into submission.
Seeing how the Wo-Class seemed so nonchalant about their side possessing weapons of mass destruction, like.
'Hey, for your info, we got a few nukes lying around, we're just didn't see the need to use them.'
And seeing how they were holding her hostage and forcing her to tell the truth, the ship girls didn't find themselves doubting the information they heard, although the opposite could also be true and that she might simply be bullshitting them to buy time for the Abyssal backup fleet.
The Abyssal continued,
[There was quite the buzz about a few new classified weapons in the works, and there were talks about their true nature and potency.
But it is definitely not a bomb, as that wouldn't be worth our attention.]
Sendai held up her palm to signal the Abyssal to pause, looking wearier by the minute as she asked:
"If you all have nukes, why didn't you use them?
You can just shoot them at us and boom, battle over. So why not? And how the fuck did you guys develop them?"
[We stole them from the American nuclear facilities near the East Coast, when we invaded America in a land invasion back in 2007 and improved upon their design.
And besides, we seek to conquer all ship girls and wipe out humanity, not simply reduce everything to radioactive rubble and leave everything as an unsalvageable mess.]
"So when you say 'conquer', you mean..."
[We want to capture all of you to turn you into us through the process you call 'Abyssalization'.
The humans do not deserve you.]
They had no response to that, wondering how true the adage was now, that they were indeed 'the last line of defense' against the saving of mankind and complete annihilation.
Arare clicked on the laptop to change the displayed picture, Shiranui taking the initiative this time and asked about what they had uncovered here in the abandoned facility.
"You Abyssals are hoarding a lot of resources to build something far larger than anything we've seen.
You building more Princesses?
And what's with the partial picture of that rudder and the 'Fl'?
Has it got something to do with the fact that you Abyssals haven't been developing anything new in the last five years?"
The Wo-Class blinked, trying to think about the myriad of questions as she finally decided on an answer.
[I believe that the creation of something large in the deepest sections of the ocean which is highly classified.
I have nothing to comment about the partial name reveal.
There have also been many rumors of a new Abyssal being created as per the next Five Year Plan.]
"A new Abyssal?"
Sendai was now very interested, and also very worried about this new revelation, but whatever the Abyssals have created, they clearly kept a tighter lid on this development program than they did about the Princesses, the Wo-Class not exactly confirming anything as she continued.
[Nothing concrete that our leaders would dare reveal to us, for fear of leaking information like we did the Princesses.
But thank you for showing me that this much resources are being used for something.
At least I now know that there might be some truth behind those rumors.]
Arare slammed the laptop closed, eyes narrowing as she finally commented on the Wo-Class's statements.
"No.
Whatever you throw at us, we'll learn to beat it, no matter what."
[The predicament you now find yourselves in does not support that claim.
We have far more resources, manpower, and all the time in the world to maintain our assault for decades to come.
These three factors will ensure your demise sooner or later.]
The Abyssal decided to get a little philosophical, in order to stall for time.
[Besides, even if you defeat us, so what?
The humans will eventually learn to fear your powers, your nigh-immortality outside of sorties, which are almost akin to godhood to them.
And fearing a possible insurrection, they will likely start a manhunt for you all to be put down by scrapping you all.]
"You say that as if it's already a foregone conclusion."
[And you sound as if you blindly believe it isn't.
And even if that wasn't true, even now, when a global threat exists to wipe them all from the face of this earth, there still exists terrorism, infighting, wars in less-developed countries, anti-war unions who protest.
We do listen in on your mass-media channels, you know.]
The Wo-Class's head leaned forward, casting a shadow over her face as she continued.
[They will return to fighting each other in full force, as the cycle of violence that has been perpetuated throughout the course of human history cannot, and will never be stopped.
What happens then?
Would you fight and kill your current allies in the future, should they order you to?]
Shiranui pressed the muzzle of her pistol at the Wo-Class's head, seething as she whispered into her ear.
"Shut up.
Anything you say, it's just sophistry to make us doubt our cause, even if it makes sense.
Stop stalling."
The Abyssal, her head tilting due to the Cannon pistol pressed to her temple, didn't even look fazed as her unblinking and emotionless eyes looked into Arare's calculating pupils, stating her cause ominously, every word reverberating and echoing within the cave as she spoke.
[Know that I'm telling you this, not because I fear you, or your powerful fleets.
Not even the Cannon in the hands of the Kagerou-Class Destroyer, pointed at my head.
It is the simple fact that no matter what you ship girls do, no matter what I say, even if you gathered every ship girl from all four corners of the earth to fight us, you cannot ever hope to defeat us.
You can kill me, but you cannot kill us.]
Her pupils darkened, causing the temperature to seemingly drop in the void of the cave, her voice lowering as she tilted her head ever-so-slightly forward as the glow sticks started to dim, casting a shadow over her face and barely hinting at the unfathomable forces at work deep down in the Abyss, where the light dared not reach.
[Here we were, paranoid that you ship girls were looking over our shoulders and that you may learn of our secret projects.
Yet here you are, asking a mere carrier these questions and clinging to every word I say, which proves that you don't even know half as much as I do.
And my sources were from what you humans would call 'through the grapevine', which makes things even worse.
Despite all your databases, your knowledge of our ecology, our weapons, our tactics, you really don't know anything about us, do you?]
Nobody had anything to reply to that, being too shocked by the hard truth that the Abyssal dropped on them, of their ignorance, and their inability to prepare or even understand what was to come.
Finally, with the mental beeping of the timer that rang in Sendai's head to remind her of their new escape schedule, she snapped out of her trance and stood up to pack up everything for the escape as her hand hovered over the Anti-Abyssal knife strapped to her thigh, gesturing to the chilling Abyssal and shakily remarking,
"W-Well, you tell your boss, whoever it is, that we're coming for them.
We may not know everything now, but we will learn of them and we will win with superior tactics, like we always have."
Only to earn the petrifying and unyielding stare of the Abyssal, and Sendai eventually turned away in distress as the trio attempted to gather up their equipment in the cave to begin the long trek home, their thoughts whirling as they tried to decipher the warning made by the Abyssal and everything that had transpired thus far.
A slight mumble escaped the Abyssal's lips, the sound caught by the sharp light cruiser, who whirled around to address the hostage that they were going to let her go, and that she could signal for the Abyssal fleet from the shore with the glow-sticks if she tried.
Only to find the Wo-Class standing before her, her empty green eyes piercing through Sendai's horrified expression, the shadows in the cave cloaking her and her eyes almost luminescent in the quasi-darkness.
The cable ties lay on the floor, broken with sheer force.
The terrified Sendai whipped out her Anti-Abyssal knife, only for the Abyssal's hand to shoot out from beside her body to intercept her weapon with equally blinding speed as the two destroyers quick-drew their Cannon pistols to form a stand-off to deter the frozen Abyssal.
However, the Wo-Class only seemed interested in getting through her final speech to the three wary ship girls, as the darkness of the cave's interior seemed to seep into and blanket the Abyssal through the cape draped around her back, along with her jet black cape and pale head making her seem like a living Reaper.
[As a human once said, 'If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.'
Rejoice in ignorance of your enemies and people, for death is upon you all.]
She dropped her hand to passively observe the ship girls packing up and exiting the cave without glancing back as they tried to escape the incoming Abyssal Fleet that were bound to appear soon.
She simply stared from the beach as she observed the ship girls hurriedly gathered their equipment and sailed away, their minds trying and failing to comprehend the sheer scale of things to come.