He could have listened for a few more minutes.

It was Saturday, the end of the work week. Because of this, the worksite was a little slower to get into gear, its workers already showing fatigue from the week's labor. Alton passed an inspector, the man scanning a crane's motor with a gaze that seemed a little too familiar. At the base of building 2's first flight of stairs, Alton passed a team of plumbers, the workers not even pretending to prepare for the day's work as they chatted amongst each other. Throughout the worksite, it seemed everyone's focus was on their plans for tomorrow. Not much was going to get done today, he suspected.

Unsurprisingly, his team wasn't any different.

"Like hell she is." Sern scoffed, the younger man shaking his head as he dismissed… whatever his coworker had said.

"I saw her in the office." Tirto replied, the older man's face lined with a knowing smile. "Girl was watching those training videos."

"So?" He replied with a sneer. "She's probably one of those liberal arts punks from Seattle." Sern acknowledged Alton's arrival with a nod, continuing. "I wouldn't trust her to put her own shoes on without training."

Suppressing the sudden urge to argue with Sern on that point (Some of his friends had managed to get a degree in that very broad category, and were the most practical people he'd known), Alton instead focused on what he'd heard earlier.

"Who is 'she?'"

Now that he thought about it, he'd overheard some others talking about some girl, as well. Then he'd dismissed it as talk about some celebrity, but Tirto's words showed there was much more to that.

"The boss is showing a new girl around." Tirto's accent had been incomprehensible a few months ago, but the man's english had improved dramatically since then. "Apparently she's going to be working here."

In his old job, Alton would have considered this kind of talk pointless, and a little sexist, but here?

Plenty of women worked in the industry, but in the eighteen months he'd only seen them as drivers and inspectors, stopping by the site for a few hours before leaving. Even if this new girl had the strength and endurance for the kind of work they saw on the jobsite, physical hurtals weren't normally the problem. Being the only woman around hundreds of overworked and lonely men? That was normally the problem.

"Who told you that?" Sern asked, turning his attention back to Tirto.

"It's all over the place." The older man replied. "Who have you talked to today?"

Sern's cheeks darkened.

"So? You know how rumors work. She could just be a reporter."

"Does it matter?" Alton couldn't stop himself from asking the question. There was a short pause, so Alton continued. "This is a massive construction project. Even if she's hired on, they'll have her operating some machinery or working with electricians, and you'll never see her."

He turned, glancing over the worksite. Even from this angle, far from the edge of building 2's unfinished second floor, Alton easily saw over a hundred people preparing for the day's work. That didn't include those at the base of building 3's foundation, those obscured by building 1, or the several dozen workers under their feet, preparing for their own tasks.

"You'll have a lot more luck at a bar, Sern." Alton added, wondering if he'd ever set foot in one. Despite his bluster in the crew, Sern was a shy kid, and barely knew anyone on the worksite. Maybe his friend group was larger in that MMO he occasionally mentioned, but Alton doubted he had the confidence to talk to any women yet. Or did he play a MOBA? He occasionally dusted off some adventure games from his childhood, but didn't have time to keep up with the modern jargon.

"Do you have anything else to talk about, then?" He snapped back. "What about last night's game, American?"

"You remembered?" Alton asked, genuinely surprised.

"The way Austin kept going on about it?" Sern replied, rolling his eyes as he referred to their manager. "I tried not to, really."

"Well, I missed it." Alton shrugged. He was more interested in the NCAA, and even then his team wasn't doing well. It's a bit hard to prepare for football season when your training center's an abyssal firebase. "Any news from the war?"

"I don't follow that stuff, man." Sern shook his head. "Too depressing."

"We've got enough to worry about here." Tirto added. "It's not like we can change how this war ends."

That surprised Alton. Of everyone here, Tirto had the best reason follow the developments in the Pacific. Had he given up on news of his family? When Alton had first met him, his missing wife and kids had been all he could talk about. Even without that, didn't they know how important it was to keep your eyes on the war? Alton had to admit he'd been a bit of an armchair activist even before the war, but his habit of monitoring the world around him allowed him to pick up on the telltales signs things weren't developing in the Navy's favor, and thus get Mable out of there before anything worse happened. Granted, his co-workers hadn't had the same warning before they'd had to flee from the Abyssal's guns, but they had to know they couldn't just ignore the war, right?

"...You know," Sern started, ending the silence that had descended between the three. "I did see a headline yesterday. Apparently there was a battle in the… uh…" The younger man trailed off, his stare focused beyond Alton. "Huh." Alton turned, following the young man's gaze.

At first, Alton didn't understand what about the tall figure had Sern so distracted. Sure, he didn't recognize him, but given how many people worked here that wasn't particularly surprising. Then, the figure drew close enough for Alton's old eyes to realize he was looking at a she, and suddenly Sern's reaction made too much sense.

Too many people here needed to get out more.

In his defense, Alton didn't know many women taller than he was. It was hard to tell with her helmet, but she easily cleared six feet. That was fairly average, for a construction worker, but the rest of her certainly wasn't. A green and grey windbreaker, her high visibility vest, and relatively loose jeans obscured her form, but the woman's clothes didn't hide her figure enough to prevent the attention of half the men working here.

Speaking of his co-worker, Alton diverted his attention to Sern. He was keeping his mouth shut, at least, but his eyes remained glued to the newcomer. Perhaps a little teasing was in order.

"Enjoying the view?" he mumbled.

Suddenly aware of himself, the younger man coughed, diverting his gaze towards the concrete below. Alton allowed himself a small smile, catching Tirto's look of silent approval. Boys like that couldn't be blamed for looking, but Sern needed to learn how to hide his ogling.

When he'd first spotted the woman, her brisk pace had been directionless, her head darting this way and that as she took in the building around her. She was walking with a purpose, sure, but it didn't look like she knew what she was looking for. That had changed, however, as the tall woman abruptly changed direction, making a beeline for the three workers.

What was she doing up here? No, that wasn't the right question. Obviously she was looking for someone, but who? Had she gotten separated from the boss, or was she a reporter after all, and fishing for some poor schmuck to drag into an interview?

Well, he'd know soon enough. Once the woman had gotten within speaking distance, he piped up.

"Can I help you?"

Unfortunately, it was looking like all the attention Trinitite had been getting hadn't been because of Dan. Despite no longer being escorted by the site's Commander, She sure was attracting a lot of attention. No doubt a Re-class would bask in the gazes of so many people, but she wanted to keep a low profile. Was her disguise failing? That couldn't be, though, as Trinitite watched a few humans return to their jobs. Nobody was running for cover or calling for help, just… staring at her.

They… really didn't need to do that.

Come to think of it, why was every human she saw male? From various rumors and comments she'd picked up in her two years of service, she knew there were two different basic variations of humans: male, and female. She didn't have a clue as to why, but there must have been a pretty good reason, because the same was true for fish, birds, crabs, and almost everything that wasn't a ship like herself.

She'd heard Princesses refer to former or enemy commanders as 'him' or 'her,' and applying that practice seemed to help keep her from being too obvious. Still, while everywhere else she'd gone had about the same amount of women and men, Trinitite had yet to see any other females here.

Was she not supposed to be here? No, Dan would have prevented her from signing up otherwise. Her thoughts drifted back to the training video she'd seen. There were females in that, so it was obviously something Dan was expecting, so she wasn't doing anything wrong, right? Either way, she was drawing far too much attention for her liking. Would it be safer to find a different job?

An unbidden shiver shook her hull as she remembered that process. She'll have to do that again, once this was finished or she decided to relocate to observe another enemy installation, but Trinitite wasn't going to put herself through that again unless she had a damn good reason. The attention she was getting was far too mundane to push her back into that experience.

Building 2 stood before her, the half-formed skeleton of a structure she'd seen dotted all over the pacific. Let's see, she was supposed to look for Gomez at floor two. Given there only seemed to be two decks, the search shouldn't be that difficult. On the edge of the building, a temporary structure had been erected. Little more than an exposed staircase, it seemed to be what her fellow workers were using to reach the second floor, so she followed their example.

Ignoring the gaze of a human making their way down the temporary stairs, Trinitite let her rangefinders wander over the site as she climbed. The ships 'Friendly' Installations sent to set up structures at Bikini didn't like anyone snooping on their work, building with strict orders not to be bothered and under the protection of a smoke screen. To be honest, Trinitite and her sisters hadn't been particularly curious, and as a result, this process was a complete mystery to her. Judging by the swarm of humans milling about below her, it must have been quite a process indeed. Suddenly, Trinitite found herself regretting never launching a Hell Diver or two to see how a repair ship, a cruiser, and a handful of transports could build a magazine or drydock.

An elevator built into the side of Building 1 lurched upwards, a handful of workers watching the worksite as they started the steady journey up six decks. No, Dan had called them floors, hadn't he? She really needed to figure out all these different human terms. Was there some sort of list that showed all the special terminology that humans used?

Reaching the top of the stairs, Trinitite allowed herself to linger for a moment, watching another worker descend into the pit Dan had called 'Building 3.' Yesterday she'd spent half an hour watching the humans work, but Trinitite had been too focused on her despair to actually figure out what everyone was doing.

Now? Well, she was a little curious, but she certainly didn't have the time to stare. The Carrier turned, scanning the floor her supervisor was supposed to be on. Up here there were much fewer humans, around twenty divided into small task forces of three to five.

Trinitite plotted a course through the floor which should provide her with a good view of everyone. The training videos she'd watched didn't mention anything about identifying her commander, but there had to be some kind of system. The abyssal quickly ruled out determining rank by a human's height or skin color. It was possible to estimate an Abyssal's age, and thus their experience, by looking at the color of their eyes. Then, she could look for the largest ship with the most experience, and odds were they would be in command.

Obviously, that wasn't going to work here, and because the training hadn't explained the uniform beyond 'PPE,' Trinitite had no idea how to decipher the differently colored vests and helmets she was seeing. The way Dan had explained things to her, the site's command structure had made sense, but now that she was out here, Trinitite had no idea how it would react to a crisis. Sure, this far into human territory they didn't have to worry about an enemy attack, but if those training videos had taught her anything, it was that there was almost a ridiculous amount of danger to humans around here.

Trinitite hated the idea of falling any distance, but she had a hard time thinking that some exposed rebar at the bottom would make anything worse. It was impossible to take the threat of some dull, flimsy steel rods seriously, but she needed to pretend she was, at least. That wouldn't be easy. How did humans hold themselves together around so much danger?

Her thoughts had sailed away from her. Focus, Trin.

Now, she needed to figure out the local commander's identity through intuition. Over her two years, Trinitite had been under the command of dozens of abyssals, and been a force's flagship plenty of times. By now she should be able to figure out a group's leader just by observing how they interacted.

Now, what kind of leader could Gomez be? He'd be easiest to find if he acted like an Abyssal Princess, although that didn't bode well for the rest of this job. Most Abyssal Princesses, and Flagships who mimicked them, did everything they could to show they were in charge: demanding shows of loyalty, berating their underlings for their failures, and venting their frustrations onto anyone around them. No one was doing any of that (or brooding in a corner), so Trinitite was fairly certain she wasn't dealing with that kind of leader.

Trinitite dismissed the possibility Gomez could be anything like the rest of the Abyssal Princesses she'd worked with: She didn't have the best read on Dan, but he didn't seem the type to allow his commanders to withdraw into themselves, doing the bare minimum while focusing on… something. When a crisis truly started, the generally didn't step up, allowing their subordinates to take control and handle things for themselves. It was a little annoying, but she couldn't blame many of them, especially her Mother. If The Fire was half as bad as Mother said it was, Trinitite wouldn't wish it on anyone.

There were the mission-focused pragmatists, of course. Trin had served under a pretty cool Ta-class who'd been like that, a few times. She'd taught Trinitite that when an abyssal task force had mixed loyalties, each ship needed to know their leader cared more about getting mission objectives done instead of playing favorites. She tried to act like that when she was in command, but she didn't think she always succeeded. Hypocenter, of course, hadn't thought that worked at all, and had her own strategy for when she was in command…

Oh, who was she kidding! Trinitite didn't know the first thing about how Gomez ran his team. Sometimes she thought she was starting to understand humans, but they'd always go and do something that didn't make any sense to her. Even among abyssals, no two leaders had been alike, and considering how humans were? It had initially seemed a safe assumption to guess at how Gomez would run things, but now that she thought about it, the idea had been a little ridiculous. Stupid, supid, Wo!

That left her with one option: finding someone who didn't look too busy and asking. The thought had a sense of shame and embarrassment settling in her active boiler, but The Carrier didn't have any other options. She'd hoped to make a good impression by picking out the authority in the crowd and reporting to him, but now she had to practically announce to her new fleet that she was an idiot, too supid to get vital information beforehand. Damnit, this was supposed to be a low-profile job to ensure she was well-supplied, but with everyone trying to chip her paint off with their eyes and with Trinitite immediately letting all her fleet-mates know that she was unreliable, it was turning out to be a serious issue.

Picking the first group of three humans she saw, Trinitite adjusted her course to allow her to talk to them.

These humans wore similar uniforms, but even at a glance Trinitite knew she wouldn't have trouble telling them apart. The three men had sharply contrasting heights, skin colors, and skin textures, their builds unique enough that Trinitite would guess they were different classes of human. Whatever advantages their unique features provided, it was good to know Gomez kept his little task forces well-balanced.

They watched Trinitite's approach with the same interest The Carrier was starting to expect: Far too much. The tallest returned Trinitite's attention with the most intense stare, although the Abyssal couldn't recognize the emotions his coconut-brown features portrayed. To his left, a dark-skinned human's practiced eyes followed Trinitite with an ease that bordered on apathy, like the gaze one would use to watch distant sea birds, or patterns in waves. The human on the right, a man with rougher and lighter skin, leaned towards his taller compatriot, his mouth forming words Trinitite couldn't quite hear. The taller man stiffened, coughing and averting his gaze. What had that been about?

"Can I help you?"

The human on the right must have been the leader in this little group. Trinitite focused her attention on him, voicing a question she'd been silently repeating.

"Do you know where Austin Gomez is?"

Trinitite focused on the human, looking for any differences in his helmet or safety vest. There didn't seem to be anything special…

"Austin?"

The man looked to his colleagues, his expression mirroring Trinitite's question. Deep, she'd been wrong about him being some kind of leader, then.

"He's visiting storage." His short colleague replied in a thick accent. "After yesterday's circus, he's doing procurement himself."

"He'll be right back up, then." The lighter skinned man nodded. "What do you need him for?"

"I'm supposed to report to him." Trinitite answered. The two of them shared another look, but this time Trinitite recognized their expressions. It seemed the local rumor mill had taken special notice of her.

...but why, though? People joined the worksite all the time, right? Sure, she didn't see any human females around, but one joining couldn't be that special, right? Was she going to be attracting this much attention the entire time she was here? No, like any capital ship that joins a fleet, the novelty would eventually wear off.

Eventually.

Probably.

Suddenly, Trinitite had a newfound sympathy for submarines. No wonder they were so strange, if attention was so dangerous to them. Then, Trinitite vowed that the next one she met, friend or foe, would get a salute.

"Well, if you're going to be working here, might as well know your coworkers." The lighter-skinned human replied, extending a gloved hand. "I'm Alton."

She was starting to get used to the process of handshaking, so as Trinitite accepted the man's extended hand without much thought. Everyone she'd shook hands with so far had applied some pressure in the shake, and although they hadn't commented on her loose response, she was starting to feel she wasn't doing something right without squeezing a little. This time, The Confident Carrier applied some pressure on her own.

"I'm-" The human flinched, and Trinitite hurriedly loosened her grip. "Uh, Elizabeth. Sorry."

There had to be some kind of sweet spot. How could Trinitite practice?

"No problem." The human replied, returning a smile even Trinitite could tell had been forced. "You got a pretty strong grip, there."

Oh, deep.

Her teeth dug into her lip, desperately trying to find an excuse for the squeeze.

"Well-

"You see-

"I, uh..."

No, this wasn't working. Every excuse she could think of would have her sink even deeper!

"Hey, it's fine!" Alton cut Trinitite off, shaking his hand and looking to his coworkers.

"Sorry." Trinitite repeated. Eager to move on, she followed the human's attention to his comrades.

"Tirto." The shorter one spoke up, extending his hand. Carefully, Trinitite took it, her hand rigid to ensure she didn't accidentally crush his, as well.

"It's-" Trinitite started. How did humans greet each other? "It's good meeting you."

The man smiled as he released the handshake. His dark skin reflected the light oddly, a web of thick lines adding a texture that Trinitite hadn't seen on an abyssal. What were those? Was he the victim of a very strange accident, or did the odd skin provide some advantage? She'd seen some other humans with a similar skin tone, but they didn't have the same texture. Come to think of it, Elizabeth's face had a somewhat similar look around the eyes, didn't it?

Another question for later. Trinitite turned her attention to the third and tallest one. Even without her rigging, the Aircraft Carrier towered over most people she met, but with the third person they met eye to eye.

"Uh-" The third man started, stumbling over his own words. Good to know she wasn't the only one making this awkward. "The name's Sern. Sern Yau." He stumbled. Seeing that Trinitite had extended her own hand before he did, he hurried to catch it, giving the abyssal a jerky handshake. "It's Malasian."

...Okay? Trinitite checked her mental chart of the pacific, trying to remember where Malasia was. She knew of a Malaya, which was pretty firmly under abyssal control, but lots of completely different places had similar names, so who knew if that's what he was talking about?

"I see." Trinitite responded, unsure exactly where to take the conversation. "You from there?"

"Yeah." Sern nodded.

A second passed.

"So" Alton broke the silence, "you'll be working with us?"

"For a few hours." Trinitite clarified. "Dan's shifting me around so he can figure out what I'm good at."

"Well, it's good to have another pair of hands again." Tirto added. "One of our people quit last week, and since Austin has other responsibilities, our team's undermanned. He'll probably assign you with us."

"Well, I won't slow you down!" Trinitite promised, straightening to attention. "Just let me know what to do!"

Hopefully that didn't sound too desperate. She hadn't made the best impression so far, but while she only depended on the opinions of her superiors, she certainly didn't want to make any enemies.

Well, she didn't want to make anyone more of an enemy then they already were.

"Just don't break anything, and you'll do better than half the folks here." Alton commented. Trinitite thought he was joking, but with humans?

Who knew?

And this is out! I originally planned on introducing Austin and having the team start work this chapter, but I guess it's generally better to meter out character introductions so a reader can process them easier. Like a lot of others, this chapter fought me a lot, but I think I'm getting better at bashing my way through writer's block, so it's nice to be reporting progress on that front.

A word of warning, dialog is not my strong suit, so if anything about it felt odd, please let me know. Don't hold back on anything, of course. I am trying to improve, after all.

Anyways, I promised 'yall a map, so I should get back to work on that. Next chapter will be an interlude, dealing with a bit of political fallout from this situation. I don't think I can post media here, but I won't tell you to run down to SB or SV to check it out yet because I'd need to get a lot of worldbuilding done first.

There's a phrase that I've heard attributed to a Chinese Curse: May you live in interesting times. Well, it seems like everyone's pretty cursed right now, and since the author's notes for a fanfiction are no place for a political opinion I won't give any, I'd just like to say that I hope all of you are safe at the moment.