"It looks complicated, and I know it's a lot more advanced than anything we've dealt with before, but trust me: the process is really simple." Hiyou asserted, surveying the pile of dramatically-labeled boxes her teacher had laid out in front of her. "It's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. Everything's just gonna fit together!"

"I'll take your word for it." Saratoga said, eying the newly-arrived equipment like it was soaked in nitroglycerin. "Hopefully it will make a bit more sense once we start assembly."

She wouldn't admit it, but Hiyou was hoping the same thing. The carrier conversion had jumped at the chance to help the American build her new computer, but beyond the array of tutorials and guides she'd crammed last night, she didn't know that much about how computers actually worked. Still, her meager knowledge probably surpassed Saratoga's, and she had plenty of notes and her phone to help her. She certainly wasn't going to hurt the situation.

Unlike some of her fleetmates, who found the veteran aircraft carrier intimidating and hesitated when she asked for help, Hiyou saw the opportunity and jumped at it. Skilled capital ships like their teacher didn't stay as ensigns for long, and if she wanted that assignment to the convoy that darted between her homeland and the United States, she needed to show that she could work with their former enemies.

That was why she'd been so insistent on speaking with Saratoga in English. It was why she'd dedicated so much time to correcting the issues the fleet carrier had pointed out earlier in the week, and why she was in Saratoga's quarters now, helping to build a computer she could use to stay in contact with her friends and family overseas.

Everything she did now brought that moment when she could finally sail under that golden gate closer. It wouldn't be under the circumstances she'd dreamed of, since she'd be carrying warplanes instead of enthusiastic tourists, but the pacific war taught her to be realistic.

She wasn't sure if she could carry tourists in her new form, anyways.

"So, Hiyou…" Saratoga spoke up, interrupting the Japanese carrier's thoughts. "...did I get everything I needed to?"

Right. The computer.

"Ano…" Hiyou started frantically scanning the colorfully-decorated boxes, searching the mix of English, Japanese, and Chinese labels. There was the graphics card, easily identifiable by the recognizable color scheme and images of virtual warfare decorating the back. There was the keyboard, obviously, and that was probably the hard drive...

Realizing she was out of her depth, the light carrier reached into her hold, producing a loose bundle of notebook paper she'd filled the night before. Hiyou could admit to herself that she'd volunteered to help the converted battlecruiser for selfish reasons, but that didn't mean she would give this task anything but her best. After all, breaking an expensive part of her teacher's computer would be worse than doing nothing at all!

Grabbing a silver marker and a pen from her hold, she looked to the first item on her list, quietly searching for the computer's case. There, a large cardboard box sat in a corner, decorated in relatively simple line art and blocky English. Her marker hovered over the box, ready to quickly label it and mark it on her list, before she suddenly remembered it didn't belong to her.

"Uh, teacher?" She started, looking over her shoulder to view the red-haired carrier. "Is it okay if I-"

"Oh, go ahead!" Saratoga granted. To Hiyou's surprise, she was right behind her, the American ship filling her vision as she nodded. "We're throwing all of the packaging away afterwards, right?"

"Yeah." Hiyou weakly agreed. As an instructor, Saratoga had been intensely meticulous, and whenever Hiyou was operating her aircraft she'd felt the keen eyes of the carrier and her crew. The thoroughness of Saratoga's debriefings were proof that those feelings were well-founded. Now, however, that stern attentiveness was gone, a slight smile resting on the converted battlecruiser's face as her eyes flicked over the package's fancy labeling.

Her entire demeanor had shifted, now that they weren't training. Hiyou had expected her to remain strict or professional, like Katori did, but she guessed that had been a pretty silly assumption.

Scrawling out a haisty 'desukutoppukēsu' over the distracting art in silver katakana, she took the pen and crossed that off the parts list she'd assembled. Now, considering how Saratoga was more informal than she'd expected, Hiyou changed her plan slightly.

"Sara," she started, careful to use a nickname she'd heard the carrier liked, "do you want to unpack that while I inventory everything else?"

"Of course!" The American replied, picking the case up and looking around the room. "Should I set it up anywhere special?"

"I don't think it matters…" Hiyou replied, preoccupied in identifying which colorful box was the power supply, until a memory from last night suddenly hit her like a torpedo. "Wait! Not over the carpet! We need to be sure we aren't building any static charge while we're handling all of these."

Saratoga froze, and for a second a small part of Hiyou wondered if she'd made a mistake, before the carrier nodded and started moving the box towards the empty kitchen counter.

"Because they could be damaged by a discharge, right?" She asked, before continuing. "I hadn't thought of that…"

As it turned out, Saratoga had gotten all the parts she'd needed, and before long the two carriers were huddled around the slowly-forming desktop, the red-haired American watching Hiyou with interest as she carefully taught herself how to build a computer.

The work was challenging in a mental sense, especially considering the potential to break the flimsy silicon and aluminum parts with her boiler-assisted strength, but there were plenty of times where her thoughts could wander, like when she was tightening the screws holding components into place.

It was times like that when the silence started to weigh on her keel. She'd been trying to explain what she was doing with each new part she'd insert, giving her best guess of it's function, but when you were carefully spinning a screwdriver, there wasn't much to explain. Normally, the light carrier would be okay with the companionable silence, but considering she was trying to leave a good impression with Saratoga…

"So…" she started, the proper English slowly forming in her mind. "Where did you get all these parts?"

She'd been here for less then a week, after all, not nearly enough time for the pacific's war-torn trade network to deliver them here. The headset she'd seen was even labeled in german!

"Ah," Saratoga acknowledged, "When Lex got damaged and realized she wasn't going to be able to help rescue me, she called in some favors with some other ships she knew."

"That's why it's from everywhere, then." Hiyou replied, careful to keep the jealousy out of her voice. Junyou had the spirit, but would be far too broke to pull something like that off, the drunkard...

"It is." Saratoga said, smiling as she admired the art on a now-empty package. "She refused to tell me how much it cost, but I've got an estimate. I just need to think of a way to repay her that she'll have to accept."

"Something personal, then." Hiyou mused, focusing on ensuring she didn't over-tighten a screw securing the motherboard. "Have you found a hobby yet?"

"Not yet." Saratoga admitted, handing a cable to the light carrier when she held her hand out for it. "Unless you call getting settled into today's world a hobby."

To her own surprise, Hiyou chuckled at that. Getting used to the modern world had been difficult for her, especially after she'd been transferred to this reserve fleet. Saratoga's nation hadn't lost the war, but it had still been eighty or so years since she'd last seen her homeland.

That might be worth asking about...

"How different are things over at-"

Ironically, Hiyou's question was interrupted by abrupt music from a cell phone. The light carrier scrambled for her own, before realizing she didn't recognize the tune. When she looked over to Saratoga, the carrier had found her own phone, her brow furrowed as she answered and brought the metal-and-glass slab to her lips.

"This is Saratoga."

Like the vast majority of shipgirls, Saratoga wasn't entirely sure how to hold her phone. Weary of tapping the touch screen with her cheek, she held the microphone close to her mouth, leaving the speaker to awkwardly hover several centimeters from her ear. The fleet carrier must have accounted for this by turning the speaker's volume up a lot, because Hiyou could hear the caller pretty well.

"Saratoga, this is Lieutenant Commander Murray."

It was like someone threw a switch in Saratoga. Emotion in the fleet carrier's face evaporated as her rangefinders started to drift from anything in particular.

"Oh." Saratoga's response was automatic, emotionless, but some life returned to her expression as she continued. "Congratulations on the promotion, sir."

For a moment, Hiyou had thought that this Murray might have been taking advantage of her teacher, but her more easygoing response partially eased that fear. Besides, she'd read that name before, when she'd been studying something. The details were beyond her grasp, but a certain Lieutenant Murray had definitely contributed to something she'd read before. Was Murray a common American name?

"Thank you." This time, it was the speaker's voice who'd turned a little sour. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Oh, I've got Hiyou over," the american reported, "she's helping me with something right now."

Was Hiyou being paranoid, or was Saratoga warning the voice about her?

"I won't be long, then." The human voice replied. "You and Katori will be heading over to Yokosuka for a few days to brief some of Admiral Underwood's staff on this training program. Admiral Hirano will probably let you know on Monday, but I figured I'll give you a warning so you and Katori can check your training schedule and give the admiral a good date for you to depart."

"We're choosing the meeting date?" Saratoga asked, the concern in her features implying she had several more pressing questions she wasn't asking.

"This needs to happen, but the decision was to disrupt the JMSDF's operation as little as possible. The schedule isn't too flexible, though. It'll have to be some time next week."

"Aye, sir." Saratoga acknowledged. "Anything else?"

There definitely was something else, but the mysterious Lieutenant Commander probably didn't want Hiyou to hear it.

"No, I won't keep you any longer." Commander Murray replied. "Enjoy the rest of your day, Saratoga."

"You too, sir." Saratoga responded. "Goodbye."

After the aircraft carrier hung up, she paused, looking at her phone like an unpleasant news article.

"Who was that?" Hiyou asked, pretending she'd only heard Saratoga's side of the conversation.

"Someone from our Pacific fleet." The carrier dodged, making a show of pocketing her phone and turning to the computer. "Now, what are you installing next?"

Saratoga wasn't a particularly good conversationalist for the rest of the night, but while Hiyou could distract herself with assembling the computer, when she returned to her own quarters, the mysterious phone call never really left her thoughts...

Questions hung over Hiyou in the galley, the light carrier barely tasting the rice and bland curry as her chopsticks scooped up the heaped contents of her tray on autopilot. She'd forgotten about Saratoga's odd behavior that night by studying some post-war history, but when Katori and Saratoga had announced that they wouldn't be available for a few days, then put her in charge in their absence, her concerns had returned with a vengeance.

What was the real reason for Saratoga's Yokosuka trip? With the pacific war and her sinking only a few months ago by her memory, a part of Hiyou was insisting that the American was spying on them, but she couldn't think of anything that the USN would want to know that wasn't included in the reports Saratoga forwarded to both them and Admiral Hirano.

...Unless they wanted information about something else. While Japan had reclaimed two ships from the Abyss's corruption, Saratoga was the first former princess that the Americans had real access to. While they had been free to ask questions of any of the restored shipgirls, if they'd wanted to perform more invasive means of gathering information, they might not have been willing to test on a ship that wasn't 'theirs.' Hiyou still didn't know Saratoga well enough to have a solid opinion on her, but she certainly didn't deserve to be subjected to any sick experiences.

She sighed, setting her chopsticks down to wash the curry down with burnt coffee. That sounded far too much like the premise of a dark anime. It was far more likely that she'd misread the carrier in this conversation, and Lieutenant Commander Murray was 'just' taking advantage of her. It hadn't been the first time something like that had happened. Still, that wouldn't really explain why she'd found the name so familiar-

"Worrying about your new job, Hiyou?"

The converted liner jolted, a few drops of dark coffee sloshing onto the table as her dark train of thought was derailed by her approaching fleetmate. Katsuragi smirked as she took her seat, the results of her second pass at the chow line hitting the table with a heavy thud.

Well, there wouldn't be any harm in answering honestly, would there?

She shook her head.

"It's Saratoga." Hiyou clarified. "The Americans called her while I was helping her with her computer on Sunday, and the news she was going to Yokosuka really disturbed her.'

The whole training division had been sitting at the table, but their attention had been focused on their food until now.

"What do you mean?" Katsuagi asked, her smirk fading. Hiyou frowned, recalling the scene with the phone call.

"Anyone know of someone called Lieutenant Murray?"

For a moment it looked like the blank stares of everyone else at the table would be the best answer, but after a second, Taihou's voice unsteadily rose.

"Could he be an intelligence officer?"

"I suppose…" Hiyou allowed, confused. "Why do you ask?"

"Well," the young carrier started, sitting up as her confidence grew. "I was giving her a tour of the base when she first got here. Sara seemed really concerned as I showed her around. I was afraid I'd offended her, so I apologized. When I did, she laughed!" Taihou returned her attention back down to her tray, picking a bite-sized chunk of saury as she finished. "Said she was worrying about something going on back home, related to her 'old self.'"

For a moment, it felt like something clicked into place for Hiyou. Saratoga's dour reaction to the phone call made sudden sense if it meant she was forcing herself to delve into dark memories, but what did the US desperately want to know from her that they'd pull her aside for several days?

Now that she thought about it, this new information only created more questions!

"So, what could Jellyfish have done that the Americans would still be worried about?" Amagi chipped in, the triple-decked ship having forgotten her own food.

"She said the details were classified." Taihou shrugged, the bite of saury disappearing into her mouth.

"They're worried about radiation damage?" Kasagi suggested. "That was Jellyfish's theme…"

Hiyou was shaking her head before she'd fully considered the idea.

"I don't understand atomic science at all, but I doubt the Americans would be worried about lingering radiation, especially since we just-."

A sudden gasp escaped from Katsuragi, interrupting Hiyou's speculation. Looking over, she saw that the green-clad carrier had frozen, her eyes suddenly consumed by terror.

"...what's wrong?" She continued, feeling an uneasy pressure rising in her boilers.

"What was the Jellyfish Princess always obsessed with?" Katsuragi's dark hair swung as her rangefinders snapped to Kasagi.

"Nuclear weapons, I think?" Her never-completed sister answered, before horrifying realization caused her to sit up. "No, she couldn't!"

She couldn't what? Nobody had interrupted Kasagi, but she hadn't been willing to complete her sentence.

"I was worried about that, too," Taihou added, "but there's probably a less crazy explanation for this."

"Are you willing to take that risk?" Kasagi asked, a bit too much of an edge to her voice as she stared back at Taihou. "We certainly didn't check all those supplies we left at Bikini. What if an installation that could fly B-29s got their muddy hands on it? Don't the abyssals trade crap all the time?"

Finally, Hiyou realized what they'd been talking about. The terrible bombs that supossedly had shocked Japan into surrender and had held the earth in a relative peace until the Abyssals appeared. The mental image of a lone bomber slipping through human air defenses and wiping any city they wanted off the map…

Saratoga's reaction would certainly be appropriate.

"That would be really bad, yes," Taihou replied, her voice pleading. "But isn't making a nuke really hard?"

"Making a warship is hard, too!" Katsuragi chimed in, "But the abyssals don't seem to have any trouble getting those."

As Saratoga and Katori's designated fleet leader, Hiyou knew that she had to step in and prevent them from making any more of a scene, but at the moment she was just stunned. Kasagi was always such a quiet girl, the carrier aware that she'd gotten no combat experience while under construction in Nagasaki-

Oh.

"Calm down, sisters." Unryu commanded, the nameship sitting between the two making her presence felt. "If there was an abyssal nuke floating around the Pacific, then what could we do about it?"

There was silence at the table.

"Our duty," the white-haired carrier answered herself, "which right now is training to be the best warships the Emperor could ask for." She nodded to Hiyou, the two of them hardened veterans compared to their fleetmates. "Part of that is trusting that others can perform their duty, as well."

"Indeed." Hiyou agreed, giving Unryu a thankful nod. "We're jumping to too many conclusions, anyways. Apologies for bringing it up."

Questions still gnawed at her, settling between frames as a pressure that she couldn't quite get rid of, but seeing the worried expressions on the faces of many on her team, she'd realized she'd made a mistake.

She'd just have to ask Saratoga about it later, and hope she'd be satisfied with the answer.

Fear and shame dominated Abukuma's thoughts. One of the only light cruisers in the Maizuru district, she sat alone, her phone forgotten as her mind raced over the implications of the conversation she just overheard.

An abyssal nuke?

A possible abyssal nuke, she corrected herself, but what mattered was that something apparently had Saratoga and possibly the Americans panicking about something, and they didn't want anyone else to know about it. Maybe it was some old resentment from the war, or perhaps it was the paranoia she was developing as she worked with the Russians in convoys to Vladivostok, but something told her that she'd just overheard something larger than the capital ships had realized! A deeply-worried former abyssal princess? The Americans suddenly recalling her to a secure location? There couldn't not be something serious here!

At least it was hidden from the public. Maybe the US had alerted some other governments about the issue, but the carriers and herself didn't have the need to know. However, if something this big was being kept a secret from them, then somebody probably had to investigate.

Against her better judgement, the light cruiser started mentally composing a list of ships who'd be good at tracking down something in enemy territory. Submarines would definitely be involved, of course. If the JMSDF knew about this situation, they'd be using them to help. Maybe some ships she knew who'd been based in Yokosuka had caught wind of something happening, as well, and she was sure she could rope some of her sisters into looking around...

Hope you're all enjoying things! I'm getting used to a routine without too much free time, but like I've said, moderate stress seems to inspire me to write more!

I actually had another interlude planned between this one in the last, but as I was brainstorming how I would write it, I decided I couldn't really get it long enough to make it a real interlude, and it didn't really contribute to anything, so I decided it wasn't really worth writing. Maybe as an omake later. I've also been pretty bad about replying to comments, lately, especially on SV. I'll be trying to address that after this, because I am really thankful for the comments I've gotten, and have just... failed to express that with good replies. It's not a time issue, finding time to type some comments out shouldn't be that hard...

Anyways, I'm rambling a bit. Hope you all have a good December!