Rain sounded different here. It hadn't picked up yet, content to remain at a steady drizzle, but the familiar patter she'd gotten used to over her two years of life was different. Uncanny. She'd first noticed it after landfall, but hadn't had an opportunity to dwell on it. Compared to the new sights and sounds, the immediate danger the military posed, and the sea of radio transmissions she'd discovered, the noise of slightly different rain didn't bear contemplating. Now, with nothing else to divert her attention other than her food and passing humans, it was becoming impossible not to.

Trinitite knew why, of course. Raindrops against concrete, leaves, and grass produced a much different sound than against sand and sea. The real issue, however, came from what was conspicuously absent: No rain fell against her deck, rolling off her rigging and running in rivulets down her tentacles. By its absence, rainfall changed from a comforting familiarity to something else she'd have to get used to. It hadn't bothered her until now, but after the failure at Luzon Blues she couldn't ignore it.

A job just wasn't going to happen, was it?

Sure, she learned a lot from her encounter with Ineng, such as a summary of the full job process: job applications, resumes, interviews, and many more technical things that flew over her deck completely. It felt pointlessly complicated, but maybe one of those library programs she kept hearing about would explain it better.

Makeup, too. It took five tries in the Luzon Blue's Head and several hours, but by the time she left the market, her disguise had Ineng's approval.

"Well, you don't look like a mannequin anymore…"

Given she'd started using makeup a few hours before, Trinitite took the human's comment as glowing praise. She still didn't know what half the stuff she grabbed from the Fred Meyers Fleet's stockpile actually was, but given a mirror she could at least make herself look human.

Not that it didn't come with drawbacks, however. With how fragile it was, Trinitite would have to avoid water if she wanted to maintain her disguise, an irony that wasn't lost on the abyssal. Her current hat, thick and sporting a wide brim, kept the rain from ruining her disguise, but Trinitite would have to be careful to defend against splashes. This also meant camouflaging her hands was out of the picture. Any job she found would need a reason to wear gloves, and often.

To summarize her situation, not only did Trinitite need to find a job, but she would also have to ensure it wouldn't require taking her gloves off or work around a lot of running water. All of this so she could secure her supplies and begin a real search along a tiny fraction of the US coast.

The abyssal sighed, turning her attention back to her meal. She wasn't exactly sure what 'beef sausage' was, and what it had to do with summer, but it's convenient size (about that of one of her 40mm shells) and savory taste was growing on her. It was a little dry, but the 'frappuccino' recovered from her refrigerator offset that. The dark, sweet drink came as a surprise to the Wo, and she still wasn't sure what she thought about it.

The meal wasn't bad, but still different. Trinitite was sick of different. She always thought of herself as the calmest of the fleet's Wo sisters, but she felt her limit approaching. If she didn't get a job soon, she'd-

Tear one of those human vehicles apart? Raid another warehouse? Walk into the woods and scuttle herself? Trinitite wasn't sure.

Her meal half-finished, the Abyssal stood. Perhaps dwelling on this wasn't healthy. Trinitite could handle the stress caused by weeks of constant air raids, stalking submarines, and unexpected rocket bombardments. She knew she could stay calm under pressure, and as tiring as things seemed it hadn't gotten as bad as her last convoy to the Solomons. She wouldn't fall apart, not unless things got much worse. Her experience, determination, and curiosity could hold her together.

The Wo-class began walking again, alternating between a bite of sausage and swig of the dark drink. She just had to find a library. That shouldn't be too difficult, right? Her current strategy, tracing a relatively straight line northeast from Redmond, didn't seem to be working, but there were other ways to look for buildings. A grid search would be tricky with just herself, but a library wasn't going to try and evade her, either.

At least, she thought it wouldn't. Given her current luck, who knew?

Maybe, like with her own library, the libraries she was searching for were simply sections of the larger buildings. In that case, it was no wonder she hadn't found any yet. The Abyssal wasn't going to be forcing her way into any more random buildings, though. Not without much more experience. She was lucky with the Fred Meyers, but randomly entering more buildings in search for a library was risky, to put it lightly. She needed to gather more information, which might take a while.

Trinitite stopped again, taking the time to examine the buildings around her. Luzon Blues, and the shops around it, were half a mile behind her, several similar clusters of buildings lining the road between her and the market. Several also had their own help wanted signs posted, but Trinitite wasn't particularly interested: At this point, she didn't expect to learn much another failure.

The only unique building she'd passed was the one she'd had her meal in front of: A simple establishment labeled "US Postal Service." Sure, eating in front of a US-aligned building was a risk, but this fleet wasn't particularly threatening. She wasn't sure how they expected to safely deliver their supplies without armed escort, but it seemed to be working for them so far. Maybe the Navy, Army and Firebringers were good enough at keeping enemies out of the country they didn't feel the need.

It had become impossible to determine where she was, exactly. Would this city end in two more miles, or ten? The map she carried wasn't particularly helpful. According to the road map, the Abyssal was standing in an uninhabited wood, which was obviously not the case.

"Outdated charts…" The carrier muttered, suppressing a curse. Out of every problem that would follow Trinitite from the Abyssal Fleets, of course it would be this one.

Trees obscured any signs of human civilization beyond the nearby buildings. The only exception would be a steel tower that stood out from canopy, yellow paint highlighting it against the clouds. Trinitite had been watching it during her meal, her thoughts wandering as she watched it twist to and fro. It wasn't along her planned course northwest, but a detour wouldn't hurt anything.

The abyssal looked ahead, mentally mapping out the town around her. No guarantee, but these streets were probably arranged in the same manner she'd seen throughout the rest of human territory. This might not be a library, but some reconnaissance couldn't hurt, right?

To the Aircraft Carrier's surprise, the tower that had attracted her was familiar. Trinitite herself didn't have any external cranes, but plenty in the Crossroads fleet had them. This one wasn't designed for floatplanes, but its mechanics seemed almost identical. The crane, mounted on a vehicle, sat in a lot cluttered with other vehicles, supplies and people. The field, devoid of vegetation and protected by a bright fence, was dominated by four partially-formed structures. Each in its own stage of development.

Let's see, from here she could make out the steel rods that reinforce the structure, meaning those foundations, and perhaps the walls they were planning on adding, had to be concrete of some kind. Trinitite knew a few things about construction, although almost all of it was second-hand. Bikini Atoll had already been covered in usable structures when they had first arrived, but it wasn't a functional naval base. While she was out on expedition, the rest of the fleet was working to make sure Trinitite returned with somewhere to store her newly-found supplies. The results of their labor didn't compare well to the buildings the humans had left from before.

Come to think of it, why was their island empty to begin with? Plenty of other Abyssals she'd talked to mentioned fighting over their current homes, and almost every human settlement she'd seen displayed battle damage of one kind or another.

Did it have something to do with the Fire? But if it had scoured the Bikini Atoll completely, why did they bother setting up new buildings anyways? There were over a dozen structures on Bikini, something the Crossroads Fleet had done their best to maintain. That couldn't have been built quickly.

Another question for the library, she supposed.

More delicate facilities, such as the fuel tanks and magazines, needed outside help. There weren't many installations her Princess was willing to do the needed favors for, making the base Trinitite had razed one of the hardest-earned in the Pacific.

Was destroying all of that a little extreme?

Eh, probably not. It hurt a little, knowing her home wasn't gone until she'd personally burned it down, but without her Princess? Without the rest of her fleet? It was just another rock in the pacific. Once she'd found out exactly what her mother had become, she could think about where a new home would be.

The Wo took a step back, leaning against another building as she watched the humans work. A man guided the mobile crane, waving its operator through lifting a steel grate as wide as her deck. Clustered around the event, several other humans watched and worked, their bright helmets and vests dotting the rain-darkened landscape. Someone crouched next to an array of metal poles, thin and tightly packed together, the half-formed skeleton of a tower joining several others in the structure.

Dozens of other tasks were being performed in front of her, the humans darting to and fro like a disturbed school of fish. For half an hour, the Carrier watched, observing the workers as they continued her duties.

Come to think of it… some of this stuff didn't seem too hard. She could tighten a nut or dig a hole, and given time she was sure she could operate that crane. Compared to fighter direction, air traffic control, and anti-submarine doctrine, none of this could be too complicated, right?

First: you don't seem fit for a service job. You didn't talk to a lot of people growing up, did you?

Ineng's words returned, unbidden. To be honest, Trinitite still wasn't exactly sure what any job entailed, let alone what qualified it as a service job, but this seemed about as far as she could get from the human's market. She didn't have to act particularly human, memorizing the invisible protocols that dominated human trade and communication. Wear a big hat and quietly follow someone's orders? Trinitite had a lot of experience in that.

You know what? The library, wherever it was, could wait. Trinitite was going to try for a job one more time, except now?

If you're reacting, you're losing.

A common phrase among the abyssal fleets, and one she heard a lot from ships who didn't have experience in submarine warfare. It didn't apply everywhere, but here?

She was going to have to be a little more proactive.

Here's another chapter! If it feels a little small, that's because this is the first part of a block over 4k words I initially wrote for this update. My current policy is, if I do write something over 4k for an update, I'll edit the first part, release it, and go on to release the second one once editing's done. I'll also have to do some fact checking as well as editing, so no guarantee the next chapter will come out tonight.