Inspired and based on the Worm/Kancolle x-over story "Carrying the Big Stick" by Veriseple at Space Battles. Includes characters from the film 'the Hunt for Red October', my Love Hina x-over story 'Contract Labor', and sundry others.

The war against the Abyssals is going badly, and much more so for the Americans, who are having trouble summoning ship girls. Especially the large ships they want and need; their last failed summons resulted in a explosion that nearly destroyed a naval base.

After several months of requesting help from the Japanese, who have summoned the most ship girls but not enough to make up for their losses, a delegation is sent to the US to help them. But when the titular expert is a 25 year old post-graduate student, her assistant is her room mate, and a spook and a bodyguard are along for the ride, will her ideas and theories overcome the military orthodoxy standing in the way? And can they do it before the Abyssals summon something even more powerful than what has been seen and fought before?

Summoning A Big Stick

Part I

v2.0

US Navy Third Fleet HQ,
Naval Base Point Loma,
San Diego, California

Vice Admiral Josh Painter was not watching the video that was playing on the flat screen monitor in the briefing room, as he had already watched it several times before. Instead he was watching the reactions of the other people in the room.

Captain Charlie Davenport had a look of disbelief on his face even though he had seen the video almost as many times has he had. Having served together several times over the years, the last time when Davenport had commanded the USS Enterprise and Painter had been the Carrier Battle Group commander in the North Atlantic, Josh had brought Charlie along to be his chief of staff when he was given command of the Third Fleet, responsible for the Eastern Pacific from Alaska to Antarctica and Hawaii to the U.S. West Coast. Charlie was hardnosed and a skeptic, but dedicated and through. Seeing what he called 'hocus-pocus voodoo' onscreen did nothing to convince him, and it was only when he had personally seen the results of the Abyssal attacks and interacted with the Japanese 'assets' that fought them that he grudgingly believed in it.

Rear Admiral Jim Greer was watching the video with a dispassionate face. Starting his career in the Navy as an intelligence specialist during the Cold War, it did not take long for him to be transferred to CIA and work his way up the ranks there, his naval career keeping up with his intelligence work, eventually winding up with the position of Deputy Director for Intelligence, wearing civilian suits in spite of his rank. In charge of analyzing information from various sources and presenting it to those who needed it, Greer had been known for being willing to consider information that others would dismiss out of hand, and out of the piles of dross would find the pure nuggets that would break cases and plots wide open. He had brought along one of his star analysts, Jack Ryan, formerly a history teacher from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis who had made the news breaking up an assassination attempt in England before being recruited to join CIA to work on the Intel side. Painter had first met the young man during an operation that even now they could not talk about. The younger man was watching the video with wide blue eyes, struggling to understand what had happened and what had gone wrong.

On the other side of the table were people who would normally not be seen in a American military briefing room. First was Motoko Kusanagi, a Japanese representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in her late thirties wearing a business pantsuit, unusual in that the light shade of purple matched the color of her hair. This drew attention from her dark maroon eyes, which while not too obvious did not miss much.

Next was a younger man with dark brown hair wearing a black suit and dark Wayfarer sunglasses standing against the wall, his hands clasped in front of his waist. It would be easy to dismiss him as a bodyguard or security agent if it was not for a subtle feeling of unease when someone looked at him for too long. Painter and Greer knew why that feeling was occurring, but the others were not cleared high enough to officially know about it.

It was the two last people that drew the most attention. One was a young woman who looked to be in her early to mid twenties, with long dark hair and features and a complexion that hinted at a Pacific Islander heritage. Dressed in business casual clothes, she was watching the video while occasionally looking down at the notepad she was taking notes on.

The last person was probably the most striking. A young woman the same age as her companion with bright blue eyes and blonde hair in a thick French braid, also dressed in business casual clothes, she was leaning forward on the table with her head propped up against her hand, disbelief writ large across her face. But it was not the same kind of disbelief that was showing on his chief of staff's face, it was a 'how could you people fuck this up so bad' look.

Finally the video came to an end, the screen going to black after a bright blue and white flash. The blonde girl sighed before glancing at first the purple haired woman beside her, then the bodyguard against the wall before looking at the American military officers across from her. "How many people were hurt or killed in that boondoggle I just watched, Admiral Painter?"

"A dozen injured, some eye injuries from the flash, some hearing damage, some fall injuries from the blast. No deaths, no severe or permanent injuries, thankfully." Painter replied in his Tennessee drawl. He was more than a little impressed; a girl younger than his granddaughter was showing more confidence than some twenty year naval officers he knew.

"Admiral… Greer, is it?" The blonde was looking at the other senior officer. "Tell me the truth. You got most of the information for this…" the girl waved her hand toward the screen, "attempt from bar talk and scuttlebutt, didn't you?"

Greer shifted slightly in his chair, no change of expression on his face. "We do not have the luxury of working with complete or accurate information, Ms. McDougal." The African-American man's voice could only be described as basso profundo as he replied. "Most of the time we have to work with what we have available."

The girl puffed out a breath. "It's times like this that I wish we could talk in Japanese, I'm not used to people calling me Ms. It's easier when people call me Sarah-kun."

"Sarah-kun?" Jack Ryan spoke for the first time. "Isn't that a male honorific in Japanese?"

"It can be, but you have to use honorifics with names in Japan, san feels too stuffy, and chan feels too cutesy." Sarah McDougal put a vapid airhead expression on for a moment before returning to her normal look.

"So you guys tried to do a major ship girl summoning on your own after lucking out with some previous smaller ships, using methods that you probably scrapped together from drunks in a bar and propaganda videos, and to put the gilding on the lily, probably tried to summon a ship from an era which has not yet been accomplished by the nations that managed to kinda do this stuff already." Her eyes went from one American to another, sweeping across before ending at a certain officer. "Let's get this out of the way Captain, ask the question I can see you're dying to ask." Davenport stiffened in his seat before looking at his commander, who nodded slightly at him, then back at her.

"What are your qualifications to be here, Ms. McDougal? You look fairly young to be involved in matters such as these, as well as your companion." Davenport's eyes flicked over the Japanese woman who had been introduced as a government official but he was fairly sure was involved in intelligence. The man in the back was obviously there for security reasons.

"You mean, why is the snot-nosed kid here involved in military stuff, men's work even?" Observing the man's eyes widen slightly in offense, she kept talking. "I have a BS degree in archeology from the University of Tokyo, I'm almost done getting my masters in anthropology, and after that I'll be working for a doctorate in the same. Plus I have certain skills that help in the summoning ceremonies needed to call up ship girls." Seeing the questions forming in their eyes she answered it before they asked. "Those skills are classified as Need-To-Know by the Japanese government, and right now you don't. Maybe later, once I get clearance and I see how much help you guys need. Nyamo here," Sarah tilted her head toward the dark haired girl next to her, "is my personal assistant, she reminds me of what and when stuff needs to be done." Sarah glanced around again. "And to give you something that will satisfy some of your curiosity, I was originally brought in to help in summoning the Yamato."

All of the Americans' eyes widened. The IJN Yamato was one of the largest battleships that had ever been built, serving as the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet and of Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Armed with nine 18in guns, it was the most heavily armed and armored warship to ever put to sea. It wound up being sunk after an attack by hundred of American aircraft during the Battle of Okinawa near the end of World War Two. News of the summoning of the Yamato as a ship girl had done much to boost morale during the worst of the Abyssal attacks that had been strangling the Japanese islands.

"Now that we got that out of the way, let's get to the fun part." Sarah reached over and pulled in front of her the notepad Nyamo had been writing on, the other girl silently handing her a pencil as well. "The following information has been authorized for release to you by the Japanese government under the classification of 'Secret'. This is generalized information, and how you react to it will determine on what other information will be released. Specific information is classified as Top Secret and Need-To-Know, and we ain't at that point yet."

The blond girl looked up and directly at Admiral Greer. "After you guys were told that the Japanese Navy could not assist you in attempting to summon ship girls because they were too busy doing their own thing trying to build up their forces to fight the Abyssals you decided to do it on your own. You tried to do a summoning chant in a language that almost everyone involved did not speak or understand, probably phonetically, which means maybe one word in three was pronounced correctly. You did this using people with either a severe lack of enthusiasm or understanding, and you probably ordered them to keep their mouths shut afterwards, which was hard to do after people got injured." Sarah paused for a moment to glance at Davenport. "It wouldn't surprise me to hear that you ordered a bunch of guys to just start singing, reading the words from a projection screen, with no practice." The captain's eyebrow twitched slightly.

"And in using a chant that you didn't understand, using Words of Power," everyone could hear the capitalization, "you somehow managed to reach the minimum levels of power to get a reaction. And then you threw artifacts of the ship you were trying to summon into the dry dock you were surrounding and lost containment. Hell, you didn't even have a ring of protection and containment around the dock!" Sarah had been making notes as she spoke and continued writing for a moment after talking before looking up again. "You're lucky you didn't summon a freaking Abyssal in the middle of your naval base!" Everyone flinched at the words.

"You can summon Abyssals?!" There was horror in Ryan's voice.

"Summoning is opening a hole to another dimension to call forth a spirit in the form of a ship girl. It ain't just good guys on the other side." Sarah wrote for a moment before looking toward Greer again. "Who were you trying to summon?"

The admiral hesitated for a moment. "Enterprise."

"The World War II carrier?" Sarah had a faint hope but it was immediately dashed.

"No, the one after that. CVN-65." Greer replied, looking at her with some concern.

The pencil dropped from Sarah's hand to the table as her shoulders slumped and her head tilted to the side and her eyes closed. She took a couple of deep breaths before opening her eyes again and focusing on Greer again. "You tried to summon a nuclear powered unarmored aircraft carrier as a ship girl. To fight enemies that use naval artillery and aircraft to attack. Enemies that have been known to tear ships apart with their bare hands." Sarah was not shouting, her voice was rather soft, but everyone in the room flinched regardless.

After running her hands over her face for a moment, Sarah suddenly stood up, surprising everyone as she walked over to an easel with a large pad of white paper. Picking up a wide tip black marker, she uncapped it and across the top of the page wrote Summoning Ship Girls 101, then the numbers 1, 2 and 3 vertically. The blonde girl glanced at the purple haired woman and seeing her give a slight nod began to speak.

"There are three basic conditions needed to summon a ship girl, and that does not include the technical conditions and limitations involved." Next to the number 1 Sarah wrote the word Belief. "You have to believe that this can be done, you have to believe that there are things that come to this world from another, you have to believe that with their help you can fight things that look like they come from a nightmare." Sarah glanced at Davenport. "And just from the look on your face I can tell that if you didn't have a choice and you didn't have proof stare you in the face you would not believe in this, Captain."

Next to the number 2 she wrote the word Faith. "You have to believe in a higher power. It does not have to be supernatural, but it has to be something greater than yourself, where you and your friends believe in an ideal, even if it's something considered selfish by other people. Guess what, all people are selfish, it's just that some of those ideals are more socially acceptable."

Finally Sarah wrote the word Sacrifice by the number 3. "There is nothing worthwhile that you can achieve without sacrifice. You have to work, you have to sweat, you have to bleed, and sometimes you have to die to get what you want. Especially when you are protecting what you love and care for. To summon those that will protect and fight for you, you have to make sacrifices." Seeing horror on Ryan's face again she turned directly toward him. "And no, it does not involve human or animal sacrifices, this ain't some witchcraft movie here." She capped the marker and put it down. "Time for a break, I need a drink after all this talking. We'll pick this up again in fifteen minutes." Glancing across her audience Sarah smirked slightly. "Try not to drink more than one shot of booze while we're gone, we still got stuff to talk about." Seeing Admiral Painter nod in agreement, she turned and walked toward the door leading to the hallway. "Come on Nyamo, nature calls." The other girl stood up and with the security guy and the Japanese official following behind them they left the room.

The Americans looked at each other for a long moment before someone broke the silence. "Do you have any booze nearby, Josh?" Greer asked as he leaned back in his chair.

"I have some Woodford's Reserve in my office, but it's a five minute walk from here." Painter relaxed slightly as well. "Sun's not under the yardarm either."

"Pity." Greer looked from Ryan, who still had a slightly freaked out expression on his face, over to Davenport. "You don't look happy there Captain Davenport, you still don't believe in this?"

"I believe in it now, ever since I saw that one freighter that survived the attack off of Hawaii." Davenport scowled as he spoke. "What I don't like is that we have to depend on help from foreign nations to protect our shipping and our shores, and after months of near begging the help they do send are two…" The officer struggled to find the words.

"I think the word you are looking for is 'kids', Captain." Greer was sympathetic but not that much. "Ms. McDougal is a subject matter expert in this topic, and it not just because of her education." The intel officer shifted in his seat again. "Do you remember what happened in Thailand ten years ago when the port town of Roanapur was destroyed?"

"Yes, practically the whole town burned down, naval officers were raising glasses all over South East Asia. The place was a pirate haven, a lot of drug and weapon smuggling took place there too." Davenport was now frowning in thought. "There was a lot of scuttlebutt as to what caused it, even though it was out in the boondocks they were a mid-sized town that had at least basic fire fighting protection so the whole place should not have burned down like that."

Greer looked at Painter, and after the senior officer nodded he continued speaking. "What was the most far out rumor you heard about what happened in Roanapur?"

Davenport blinked a couple of times. "Most far out? That it was Sodom and Gomorrah Part Two, that God got so sick of what was happening in that town that He did the rain of fire and brimstone again."

Greer smiled thinly. "That may not be that far from the truth. What if I told you that there was an amphibious carrier strike group in the Gulf of Thailand at the time, and given what they picked up on their ECM sensors and drones they activated the Lightbringer Protocols?"

"The Hell you say?!" Davenport's eyes were fully widened now.

"The force commander had called it in to National Command Authority and they were in the middle of arming up an Alpha strike when the readings suddenly cut out. A half hour later the strike force got a distress call using spec op ID codes. Shortly thereafter a PMC helo was cleared to land on the carrier and they dropped off four people; two security contractors, a medic and a fifteen year old American girl they had just rescued." Greer paused to take a drink of water. "Sarah McDougal had been kidnapped by pirates and sold to human traffickers, who took her to Roanapur to where they were going to auction her to the highest bidder." All the men grimaced. "Two security contractors that worked for her adoptive father went after her, and they got her out. There was a running gun battle throughout the town, and the place went up because of a paranormal event took place, a massive one that the strike group picked up on a couple of hundred miles away."

"Lightbringer Protocols?" Ryan looked confused.

"It's the response protocols that existed before the Abyssals appeared. They still exist, but they aren't applicable to ocean-borne threats." Seeing that Ryan did not understand, Greer explained further. "They are the response protocols to hostile paranormal threats, usually a summoning that has either gone wrong or they lost containment. Depending on the level of threat civilian collateral damage or nuclear weapons release may be authorized." Ryan went pale as he finally understood.

"Sarah McDougal has been involved in multiple paranormal events ever since her recovery, and there is some thought that the event at Roanapur may have affected her to the point where she can cause or effect them. Her studies in Japan have also lent to this thought. So it is no surprise that she was involved in the Japanese Navy ship girl summoning project." Greer glanced at Davenport again. "Given what that girl has gone through, and what she has accomplished since then, you might want to cut her a little slack." Painter's lips twitched slightly at those last words to his subordinate, remembering when he spoke them to Davenport regarding Ryan so many years ago.

At that point Greer pushed himself back and up from his chair. "I need to visit the head myself, so we'll pick this up again later today if you have more questions." The other men nodded agreement and they all also stood and they filed out of the room in search of the restroom.