Before they encountered the Navy Strike Force, Trinitite hadn't interacted much with the crew. She still had plenty of food stored from Bikini, so there wasn't much reason to enter the galley beyond curiosity. She hadn't slept since the Firebringers first hit Bikini, but she still figured she had three weeks or so before rest became a serious issue. As far as she was concerned, there wasn't much reason to do more than hover around the bridge, watching and adjusting The Pacific Lilly's course while everyone else pretended the Abyssal wasn't there.
Now? Standing on the bridge meant she was in clear sight of four enemy warships, and every moment she watched she could feel their rangefinders boring into her hull. She was running out of ideas, and standing still no longer sat well with her. Finally, the ultimatum from the Navy meant that her actions would have a significant effect on the crew of the Pacific Lilly, a responsibility she hadn't had before.
So, here she was, inside the Trawler's minuscule galley, watching the normal bridge crew eat as she continued racking her brain.
"God damnit." A sailor cursed, staring at a device on the table. "You'd think we'd get cell coverage this close to shore."
The 'negotiations' had stretched on for days, due in part to Trinitite's efforts in making sure they went nowhere. It would have been more than enough time for the Fishing Trawler to make it to shore, if the steel-hull destroyer hadn't fired a shell over The Pacific Lilly's bow and stated the ship had gotten close enough, thank you.
Not that she could blame Captain Kelley for stopping. While the hills and trees of the mainland were barely visible over the horizon, getting any closer would only result in all of them sinking. One, maybe two more nautical miles, and she might consider taking her chances and make a dash ashore, but out here they could easily run her down and tear her apart. With the Navy's ultimatum, The Pacific Lilly couldn't make that distance without itself getting sunk.
"That's a national park out there." The sonar operator muttered, taking a bite from a strange meal in front of her. "Not many cell towers."
"They're jamming us." Captain Kelly grunted, dropping a plate of similar food on the table and taking a seat. "They don't want this situation getting out to the public."
Apparently, you were supposed to burn a fish, before tearing it apart with tools designed specifically for preparing it for consumption. Then you were allowed to eat it. For the life of her Trinitite couldn't figure out why they made process so complicated.
Still, they had to make all those changes for a reason. Trinitite had her doubts on the meal in front of the Captain, but she figured trying it out wouldn't hurt anything.
"Give me one of those." Trinitite stated, pointing at the strange food. Idly, she wondered what they had done with the rest of the fish. She wouldn't put it past the humans to toss 90% of a meal out, but even that seemed excessively wasteful.
"My dinner?"
"Yes."
The Captain grunted, standing back up and sliding the plate to Trinitite. "I'll be right back."
Trinitite stared at the dish, using one of the tools to poke at the strange meat in front of her. On closer inspection, the meat wasn't like anything she'd she'd seen before: A bit stringy, but a poke with the multi-pronged tool revealed it to be surprisingly tender. The yellow sauce that coated the meat, along with the strange white pellets it sat upon, didn't help in identifying it. What kind of fish was this?
"Never eaten chicken before?"
The sudden comment caused Trinitite to jump, looking up to view the sonar operator. Her and the other sailor were watching her poke at her meal, wearing perhaps the least hostile expressions the Abyssal had seen on them.
"Chicken?"
"It's a bird."
Trinitite stared back at her food with a noncommittal "Oh." She'd had birds before, but they tended to be too tough for her liking. Experimental prodding yielded significantly softer meat than what she would expect, which was odd. Didn't birds have to be lean and tough in order to fly and catch their prey? Whatever bird this came from must have been fat and lazy. Maybe that was why she hadn't immediately drawn the connection.
She stabbed one of the chunks of meat, bringing it up to her face and slowly spinning it in front of her. The morsel steamed, and a smell unlike anything she'd experienced before tickled her nostrils as it's scent wafted towards her. Some of the strange white pellets hung in the thick sauce that encased it. The carrier… wasn't sure what to make of it.
With a sigh, The Abyssal placed the food back on it's plate and leaned back in her chair. She should be eating whenever she had the opportunity, but food wasn't all that appealing when you knew death was bearing down on you like an impossibly thick spread of torpedoes.
"I'm going to die here, aren't I?"
This was it. No matter what she did here, the sheer amount of firepower the Navy had arrayed against her would smash her like a lifeboat in a typhoon. She was never going to make it to her mainland. She was never going to get a chance to investigate her princess, and she would never enjoy her sweet, cool embrace again.
She was going to try, of course. She'd never consider giving anything less than her life for her Princess, after all. Trinitite had some experience dealing with incoming missiles and torpedoes, but the guns on the destroyers were a threat she wasn't sure how to handle.
"That's not guaranteed." Trinitite's attention was pulled back to the two sailors at the table. The sonar operator's statement, while not comforting like she'd expect from her old fleet, at least seemed neutral.
"Why not?" She replied, confused.
The woman stared at her for half a second, a thoughtful look on her face.
"You know, I've been thinking." She said, turning her attention back to her food. "What's so important to an Abyssal they're willing to put up with a boat-full of people?" She speared a chunk of chicken with one of her tools, pointing the meat at Trinitite. "Your and our kind aren't exactly on speaking terms."
"Yeah," The other man interjected. "What in The States is so important?"
Trinitite stared back at the pair, her mind racing. Before this point, they hadn't shown any interest in her motives, only her actions. If they were prying into them, did that mean they were thinking about helping her, or were they just curious? They Abyssal looked back at her food, sighed, and took a chance. She was dead if she didn't try, anyways.
"I'm… looking for someone." She started, mentally rearranging the truth into something she would be comfortable sharing. "We were close before she suddenly left, and I think she ran here." Whatever she told them, the Navy could interrogate out of them, so she wanted to be vague. No point giving the enemy a reason to hide Her Princess.
"What, like an, undercover agent?"
"I wish it was that simple." Trinitite replied, shaking her head. "I don't know where she is or what she's doing. I don't even know why she's in 'The States'."
"Then how do you know she's there?" The man replied, pointing over his shoulder towards the hidden shore.
"I do." Trinitite replied, certainty in her voice. "I'm not sure I want the Navy to know how."
"So you're looking for a lost friend?" The woman said, a smirk appearing on her features. "Or lover?"
Trinitite nodded. "Yes, that's true." She did love her mother, after all.
"Alright…" the man nodded, sharing a glance with his partner. "Because Kelley and I had an idea…"
As the fishermen explained their plan, Trinitite found herself more at ease. She didn't see it giving her much more of a chance, but it just might be enough.
Without fully thinking about it, The Abyssal grabbed the tool on her plate, popping the piece of chicken in her mouth. Even with the blood that had been drained out, it was pleasantly juicy, and while the flavor on the sauce was unique, she couldn't say she hated it. There was another feeling, though, that she registered as she swallowed her bite. A faint tingle, that seemed to get stronger as she thought about it.
Trinitite's eyes widened, before she suddenly coughed. The odd tingle started to burn, before spiking in intensity and scorching her throat. Forget the meat, what… what kind of weapon was in that sauce?
Alarms sounded inside her. Fire suppression systems activated as damage control personnel scurried through her decks, frantically searching for the damage. As the Wo-Class carrier keeled over, clawing at her throat, the portion of her mind not consumed by pain detected… laughter?
"Oh god, there's nothing spicy in the Ocean, is there?" The sonar operator laughed, ignoring Trinitite's glare and pushing a glass full of some white substance towards her. "Drink this. It should help with the curry."
As the strange liquid poured down her throat and doused the fire raging below-decks, Trinitite made note in her log: Just like in a real battle, incomplete knowledge about the human world was going to get her killed.
Where are you going now?
At first, USS Benfold had pitied the Pacific Lilly. She wouldn't have approved of the poor Trawler's decision to venture beyond the Navy's protection, but having to host an Abyssal was a fate she wouldn't wish on any ship, let alone a civilian one. The terrified vessel had been hysteric when the missile destroyer had arrived, pleading with Benfold to remove the monster that had taken her hostage.
Then the ultimatum had been delivered, and after a few days of pointless chatter between that thing and Lieutenant Murray, Benfold had been forced to fire a warning shot over the Pacific Lilly.
South.
She'd become much less cooperative after that.
I could tell that, Lilly. Why?
If Benfold hadn't known better, she would have thought the fishing trawler was working with The Abyssal, now. Her responses were irritated, and unhelpful, and the ship took every opportunity she could to insult the Benfold.
You don't need to know that.
Benfold could feel her temper rising, but she tried to stay calm. This was a stressful situation, after all, and rationality was unfortunately rare in stressful situations. If she just explained things…
Yes, I do. If that thing gets too close to a population center-
You'll sink me. Yes, you made that pretty clear.
What was with this civvie? Was the Abyssal slowly subverting the Pacific Lilly's judgement? Or was the life of her and her crew so much more important than the lives of thousands? Anger flared in the Missile Destroyer. Of any family that had suffered from the Abyssal war, perhaps none was more impacted than the DDG-51s and their foreign cousins. A third of the original DESRON 1 had been lost in the war so far, and Benfold knew her unit had gotten off relatively easy. Still, she understood her sisters had given their lives freely, knowing that their sacrifice had been made so that others may live. Every ship loved their crew, but to see one so selfish to put the lives of their sailors above those of so many-
"Benfold, this is Dewey." A girl's voice crackled over the net, her report cutting the Missile Destroyer before she could start talking sense to the Trawler. "I'm seeing a man overboard near the Lilly, over."
What?
"Benfold, this is Monaghan. I can confirm the report on the man overboard, I'm seeing two life vests."
Excluding negotiation sessions with The Abyssal, Benfold stayed in formation about two and a half klicks from the fishing boat. Still spitting distance if shooting started, but there was enough space for the Farragut Sisters to establish a nominal screen between her and the enemy capital ship. Thus, spotting the two overboard civilians on her own was… difficult. However, the drone they'd launched had no issue picking out the two heat signatures bobbing next to the trawler, crawling towards the three destroyers as the trawler pulled away from them.
"Dewy, Mohnagan, this is Benfold" Captain Iniguez replied from Benfold's bridge, his gaze focused on the trawler. "Fish 'em out. Nashville will cover you while we send a RHIB."
That was a shame. They'd hoped to keep Nashville a secret until the Abyssal did something stupid, but dedicating two destroyers to picking up the escapees was going to open a hole in their defenses they couldn't ignore. Benfold was glad two more people wouldn't be in danger from that thing, but if The Abyssal was going to attack (and she didn't really have another option besides surrender) she'd do it now. Farragut seemed to have the same idea, guns pointing at the trawler as her sisters made their way for the two sailors. Once her UAV had confirmed the running civvies were secure, Benfold would do the same.
Five minutes ticked by, then ten, but it seemed like the abyssal aboard the Pacific Lilly was content to let her hostages run for it. Odd, as they were the only thing keeping her alive. Maybe she thought keeping the others under her gaze was more important, or maybe the Abyssal was starting to crack under pressure.
Come to think of it, Benfold thought that the Trawler would have alerted her of two escapees…
"New surface contact, enemy carrier! Four klicks, bearing zero-five-eight!"
Benfold noticed the sudden return on her radar almost as soon as her weapons officer did.
What?
"Her signature just got a lot worse. She's deploying smoke!"
The question as to how the Wo-class carrier ended up a full kilometer away from The Pacific Lilly was one for another day. Right now, they had to worry about the hostile disappearing behind a silky black cloud and steaming directly for Washington. Iniguez seemed to agree.
"Alpha strike that contact!"
Unfortunately, America's weapons industry hadn't quite caught up with the demand the Abyssal war was placing on the nation and her allies. Thus, only 34 of her 90 missile tubes were loaded, with only eight of the old anti-Ship Tomahawks. Still, saturating the smoke screen with ERAMs, ASROCs and ESSMs guaranteed she'd hit something, even if it might not do the damage she'd like to. Under normal circumstances, the Captain would be rebuked for wasting so many munitions, but now? That monster deserve nothing but the best.
As her 5 inch gun beat a thunderous tattoo and her aft deck was obscured by a rippling wave of death, USS Benfold found herself stunned by her first alpha strike. Even if it wasn't close to her full potential, and even if the majority of her striking power wasn't designed for use against ships at all, and even though the Carrier's smoke would almost guarantee the majority of her shots would miss, she figured it might just be enough.
This is for Stockdale, bitch.
You know how I said we'd be out of the ocean in the next part. This chapter's size ran away from me again, so here's the first half. Guess I lied.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed!