The day was coming to an end, the sinking sun highlighting the surprisingly sparse clouds in sharp pink and gray. Chehalis's sidewalks were fairly empty, despite the glut of human cars jockeying for position in the roads. Trinitite walked alone, Trying to look inconspicuous in her baggy windbreaker. The capital ship didn't have to check her stolen charts to navigate this part of town anymore, weaving between intersections completely by memory now.

Her first day serving under the Jack in the Box Fleet had come to an end.

Overall, she was cautiously optimistic. They hadn't had her straying far from the grill, but she'd gotten an idea of what most of the stations in the kitchen were. There was the 'frier,' where the fries and a lot of the other foods were prepared, 'assembly,' which was the other half of the job Alex had tried to teach her, and finally 'register.'

Apprehension settled into her keel, old pains from pre-landfall returning as she pondered that job. Throwing the last pieces of a meal together, dashing between the several types of drink dispensers and other equipment in the station, alternating between the indoor registers and the drive through if there weren't enough ships on station, and plenty of smaller tasks. For someone experienced in carrier operations, it wouldn't be that difficult, but if you added the issue of the customers…

The idea of constantly working with humans from unknown fleets was terrifying, but something Trinitite had already expected. The interactions would be structured and limited, Trinitite merely facilitating trades instead of negotiating them. It was much less than she'd had to handle when dealing with Princesses other than her mother. She'd hoped, dealing with them in this fashion could help her more naturally blend in.

She'd just thought they would be nicer.

In hindsight, it had been a dumb assumption, born out of laziness and complacency, her familiar enemy. She'd always heard about how horrible humans were from abyssal princesses, and even mother had warned her of the hated Firebringers, but she'd also told Trinitite of The Navy's desperate attempts to prove she wasn't obsolete, in events she now knew as the 'revolt of the admirals.'

And so, she'd gone up to the Pacific Lilly with the opinion that many things that she'd heard about humanity were somewhat exaggerated. Having spent weeks in human territory without any encounters on the level of the late Abyssal Crane Princess or pompous Harbor Summer Princess, she'd just… stopped considering the possibility that humans as unstable as them existed. There hadn't been any real logic to it, especially since she'd been warned about dangerous humans by other humans countless times already.

In a way, it was probably good that poor Alex ended up on the receiving end of that customer, although calling him a 'customer' would be inaccurate, now that she thought about it. His little division wasted a lot of time at the register, then left without giving her fleet anything. The Wo-class had clearly needed a reality check, and she'd gotten just that when the intruder had filled the building with his enraged shouting. The intruder's temper started to grow out of control as Trinitite had been manning the grill, a creeping uneasiness that she might not have been able to stay there.

It had been four against one. Her turbines had quickened as her crew started preparing for combat, unsure what exactly she was supposed to be doing. If Alex had been one of her sisters, Trinitite would have already summoned her rigging and ran to their aid, but nobody else in the fleet had seemed concerned. Even Alex wasn't acting disconcerted by the obvious threat, the measured flatness in his tone mirroring that of many abyssals who'd become experts at dealing with other fleets.

Then, the tension in the air suddenly dissipated, and the hostile fleet slinked out of the building.

A torpedo had been dodged, thank The Deep! The Wo-Class didn't know how she could have maintained her disguise in a fight.

The incident left her with several disconcerting questions. How often did that happen, and of those incidents, how often did negotiations break down so completely that shooting started? Resupply was important, after all, so the Abyssal had no trouble seeing things degrade into a melee. Training videos she'd been shown ordered her to turn over money stored in a register if threatened with violence, but what if they were attacked anyways?

Hopefully, she was worrying about nothing. Again, her fleetmates hadn't seemed particularly concerned for Alex.

Navigating a city wasn't too different from navigating in the open ocean, but it was just different enough that she could see a sliver of truth to those stories of abyssals getting lost in mazes of steel and concrete. With the scale being so much smaller then they'd be used to, and large portions of the sky being obscured by foliage and structures, the traditional sextant and chronometer just weren't precise enough for a ship to determine their exact position in a city. Trinitite had to use other methods to navigate. With the looted chart, thankfully, she had the name humans had assigned to each street, so it wasn't difficult to find her exact location by looking up towards the nearest intersection and reading the signs the humans had helpfully put up as navigational aids.

Why they chose certain names like 'Rhode Island Pl' or 'State Ave' weren't too big of a mystery to her. Considering how many streets there were, the Abyssal imagined the names themselves were mostly arbitrary. Why else would the most important roads be given forgettable letter-number designations, while the roads with more unique names sometimes never saw any use?

Adjusting her course starboard at the intersection of West and State, the abyssal turned her attention away from the day's events and towards the future. More specifically, the game store she was going to be rendezvousing with Alex at in a few days. According to her coworker, it should be to the east of the road, meaning she was on the correct side. Looking as nonchalant as she could, the Wo-class started her self-appointed reconnaissance mission.

At first, Trinitite mistook the building for one of the houses human families used as anchorage. There were plenty of those along the road as well, this structure's construction method having more in common with them than the square, metal-and-plaster buildings larger fleets operated out of. It was unique enough to stand out from those as well, relatively small portholes peeking out from walls made of processed and stacked tree trunks. If it wasn't for the backlit white-and-black sign, she'd still be wondering what the building was for.

The abyssal didn't dare enter, at least not today. The disruptive man from earlier still fresh on Trinitite's mind, and she didn't feel that comfortable walking into a strange fleet's territory without backup or any intent to make some kind of deal. In order to maintain the pretense that she wasn't performing recon the building, she maintained her course, relying on her own rangefinders and a gun camera hidden in a slightly-open pocket to make the most of the limited timeframe she had.

Unfortunately, she didn't learn much. Unlike many stores, the windows were hidden by deep red shutters, the only identifiable information provided by a glowing 'OPEN' sign in one of the portholes.

Her little detour had been a waste of time, then. Maybe she could add 'wargame' to her research list later, to see if she got any new information there. Her reconnaissance mission a failure, The Abyssal turned her attention to more important matters: her supply situation. This afternoon's resupply had already been later than normal, but on top of that, trying to limit herself to human amounts of supplies meant she was feeling the fumes in her bunkers, the growing unrest in what remained of her galley, and the increasingly urgent reports from her quartermaster. Next time, she needed to focus on a major resupply every morning, ensuring that she'd have enough to work throughout the day.

The abyssal sighed, turning another corner to adjust her course for the forests draped over the nearby mountain. It would have been bad enough if that was all her quartermaster had been complaining about, but, of course, she had more problems to worry about.

It had been several weeks since the Shelton Raid, and while she'd thought she'd gotten enough supplies to last her for months, she hadn't taken into account the issue of degradation. Anything that was dead would slowly rot, its edibility dwindling until it was no longer safe to use. She'd heard of plenty of abyssal ships stupid enough to try eating an animal who'd died of unknown causes, and the violent results among their crews were enough to convince Trinitite not to bother. Thankfully, all the meat she'd gotten was safely frozen in her meat locker, but the issue was starting to crop up in other foodstuffs, as well.

With the exception of those that had been canned, dried, or otherwise treated by the human's enigmatic methods, anything leafy and green was no longer usable. The abyssal had already eaten almost all the fruit in her hold (despite her attempts to pace herself), but things she'd initially disregarded like the 'salad kits' she'd collected were rotting into a foul-smelling black-and-brown paste. The breads she'd initially enjoyed had hardened into brittle shells of their former selves, their subtle flavor fading away, and several juices were starting to develop a strange, sour tang that the abyssal wasn't sure its makers intended. Some of the food was clearly meant to last longer, such as the ones that had been packed into easily-storable metal containers, but The Abyssal hadn't recognized that when, tempted by the clearly-visible metal, she'd eaten through a lot of them weeks ago.

For a carrier who prided herself in her logistical expertise, the realization of just how much farther she could have stretched her supplies if she'd planned a little better had been painfully humbling.

The edge of the forest was only a few hundred yards from the games store, but the multitude of busy roads between herself and the relative safety of the woodland meant that the sun had set by the time she'd made it under the tree cover.

Unlike the small patch of forest she'd hid in at Mill Creek, the woods around the towns of Centralia and Chehalis stretched on for dozens of miles. The thick forest was interrupted by sparsely inhabited floodplains between the mountains, but Trinitite could probably cross them in a space of a couple minutes, if she was in a hurry.

In short, if something went wrong, it was a great place to lose pursuers. Add to that the delayed response time from the lack of a military installation in the area, along with multiple helpful library fleets, and the Abyssal was confident she'd picked a better location to search from then last time. All she was missing was the ocean.

She sighed, weaving between the trees and bushes as she followed an unfamiliar trail between the trees and thick undergrowth. So far, she'd stayed away from the coast, no matter how much she missed the feeling of her screws biting into the sea and the headwind sweeping over her flight deck.

That was Navy territory, after all.

Chehalis also produced less light than the armada of towns surrounding Seattle and Everett, making it a bit easier for the abyssal to rest once the twilight died. A foot caught on an unseen root, the abyssal stumbling as the other abruptly slipped. She caught herself quickly, thankfully, and slowed her pace as she reached into her hold to produce a miniature human-made battle lantern. The encroaching darkness also complicated navigation and her later resupplies, forcing her to spend some of her pathetic cash reserves on obtaining the human device, but she still welcomed it.

The battle lantern's beam flitted over a small clearing, and Trinitite figured the area would be as good as any to stop for the night. Unlike last time, The Abyssal wasn't going to make the mistake of falling back to the same spot to eat and sleep every day. The forest was plenty big enough for her to be spending each night in a new location for the foreseeable future, and the hope was that it would reduce the chances of another encounter.

Time would tell, she guessed.

As Trinitite settled in for dinner, tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding suddenly drained from her keel. She still had plenty of problems, such as her lack of immediate money, unsteady supply situation, and a bit of uneasiness about her new fleet's method of only paying their employees every other week, but for the first time in a while, things seemed to be going her way.

"Alex!" Mama's voice drifted through the door, the sudden noise causing the young adult to jump. "Dinner!"

"Crap." He muttered, pulling his headset away with one hand and reaching for the door. He cracked it open, and shouted back. "Desde luego, Mom! Let me die real quick!"

He'd never learned the tongue of his Mother and Grandparents, but he'd picked up a few phrases from family visits.

"You're ducking out?" Collin's voice filtered in through his headset.

"Yeah, after this match." He confirmed, opening the hood of an old car and withdrawing a rickety-looking assault rifle.

"What's she making?" His friend asked, no doubt remembering the times she'd cooked for them when they'd had game nights at his house.

"Don't know." Alex admitted. "I saw her messing with some steak earlier, so I'm guessing we're looking at carne asada."

"Sounds great." Collin's voice replied, mischief seeping into his tone, "you sure you don't want to head there now?"

He didn't like the sound of that. Alex turned to see the muzzle of his friend's pistol leveled directly at him.

"Uh…" He started, but Collin didn't give him the time to defend himself. Alex's screen flashed red as his friend completed his betrayal.

"Long live the king!" Collin ominously quoted, and they both shared a chuckle. "See you later, man."

"Yeah, I'll be back on in an hour or so." Alex guessed, quitting the game and stretching. There was a good chance he wouldn't be available by then, but considering he'd been expecting to spend the entire night immersed in logarithmic Algebra he was happy with this half-hour they'd shared. The added bit of stress relief between weekends was more than welcome, if only for a few games. This was especially true, considering who might be visiting during their Friday game night…

"Oh!" He exclaimed, suddenly remembering something he'd been wanting to warn his friend about. "One more thing before I go:"

"Shoot."

"I got a new coworker today." He started, remembering Sarah's… everything. He didn't know the woman well enough to guess how she'd react to the local game store, but he wanted to warn his friends so they wouldn't be too surprised by her arrival. "She said she liked wargames, so I invited her to the game store Friday."

"Wargames?" He echoed, before dismissing the idea with scoff. "I've never met a woman who was into wargames before, Alex. I don't know how it could happen, but she's definitely interested in you!"

That got another laugh out of Alex, but this time there wasn't any humor in it. He didn't know how to respond. The mere idea that he would think he had a chance with his Hollywood-bodied coworker was... kind of pathetic, really. Although, she had decided to sit next to him…

"Yeah, I doubt that." He finally replied, refusing to entertain the thought further. "I mentioned some more popular stuff first, but she wasn't interested until I mentioned those."

"I'm just surprised you talked to a girl in the first place." Colin jabbed. To be honest with himself, Alex was surprised he'd talked with Sarah at all outside of work as well, but he wasn't going to admit that.

"What the hell, Colin?" he sputtered, "I talk to women all the time! It's just another human."

"How many girlfriends have you had, Alex?"

He didn't have to respond. Colin knew the answer to that question, so instead of answering Alex counterattacked.

"Okay, I haven't tried yet…" he admitted, still piercing his retort together. "...but at least I know whomever I find won't dump me in two months."

Yikes, that comeback didn't sound quite as good now that he'd said it.

"Oh, be careful what you say, Alex!" Colin teased, "You just jinxed yourself!"

Alex rolled his eyes, but that wasn't going to be conveyed over discord.

"Whatever." He stood, left hand grasping his headset as he prepared to leave the channel. "Anyways, someone might be joining us on Friday. Don't hit on her, and make sure Dustin doesn't scare her off with a history lecture or something."

"Gotcha." Collin replied "Enjoy your dinner, Alex."

"You too, man. See ya later." He killed the call, tearing off the headset and leaving his room. Thanks to that early betrayal, he hadn't wasted too much time, but he wasn't going to waste any more before getting to the table. Having some decent food to enjoy after his low-effort fast food lunch was always a good way to end the day.

This one fought me a bit, although it isn't that important of a chapter. Originally, I was going to have all of Alex's friends with him in that call, but eventually decided against it. It's much better to introduce characters one at a time then to shotgun them at the reader and hope they remember them all, and that last bit didn't really have enough space for more then a couple characters.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Figure I'll fit another work chapter in, then maybe an interlude? Like with every arc I've written for this fic, I've got broad strokes figured out, and some fun ideas, but usually no concrete plan for anything beyond a few key scenes and some specific chapters.

I just have to remember that Halloween's coming up.