Operation Absolute Railway was cursed.

Every time they'd thought they were about to catch the "Fugitive Princess," as the rank-and-file was starting to call her, she'd suddenly change her tactics, forcing General Hudson to twist his plan this way and that. If this happened in an exercise, such twists and turns were expected, but every extra person he had to bring in, every new asset he acquired, meant their cover-up got shakier and shakier. It was like they always had just under enough resources to actually catch the bitch.

The first sign things were going wrong is when the Rangers followed the Carrier's trail south to the Queets River. A carcass wasn't particularly alarming, although the small hope the Abyssal would starve in the woods was eliminated. What the Rangers found noteworthy, however, were other tracks they'd spotted nearby: Human boots, and there was more than one. There was no guarantee they'd put the dots together, but it did not bode well for keeping things secret.

Beyond that, following the Abyssal through Olympic National park had been fairly straightforward. Only one with an Abyssal's superhuman abilities could leave a trail as obvious as the abyssal did. She tended to walk through underbrush rather than around it, and more than one tree hadn't survived her passing. By estimating her speed from the tracks The Abyssal left behind, Colonel Walton guessed they'd catch up with the monster long before she ran into any small towns.

Then, the Abyssal left the Olympic Mountains and started to run. In the rough mountains, a skilled soldier with good boots could outpace the superhuman but clumsy Abyssal (or Nashville herself, she was sure), but on flat, even ground? The 2nd Ranger Battalion found itself choking on the Wo-class's waterlogged dust. The fact the woods were a little too thick for proper four-wheelers didn't help any.

Still, the General was an adaptable man. Additional aircraft and drones were introduced into the operation, in the hope that a faster monster would be easier to separate from the general wildlife of washington, but sadly there was no luck there. A handful of prototype exoskeletons were acquired, allowing the Rangers to match the Monster's brisk pace. If Nashville had an ounce of tracking skill, she certainly would have been deployed immediately.

It didn't matter, though, because the Carrier's trail veered east and ended at a road leading into the small town of Shelton, Washington.

What now?

Asking the Rangers to follow the Abyssal into the town wasn't… ideal. Issues with tracking someone over asphalt aside, searching a town with Rangers jeopardized the objective of secrecy somewhat. Second, trying to avoid the notice of the regular civilian population along with their quarry meant the traditional methods of tracking someone were no longer viable.

Still, there weren't many better options, so elements of the 2nd Ranger Battalion changed into civilian clothes and entered Shelton. An airstrike was no longer a good option, but aircraft were kept on station. The narrowed search area should help, at least. Since a softening strike was out of the question, Nashville had to admit she couldn't take the capital ship in a one-on-one fight. Thus, General Hudson gave the Navy another call. Another ship was on its way, probably fresh from the convoy that had recently returned from Japan.

What was the Abyssal doing in there, anyways? Just hiding? She might have realized the noose was closing in, jumping to the nearby town as a shield. Except when she'd used the fishermen as hostages, she'd been very open about it. So far, it seemed she was keeping her head down. The town wasn't showing any signs of abyssal occupation, that was for sure.

Except it had, and the good folks in the Shelton Police Department had known about it for Hours.

So, here she was, riding along with Lieutenant Murray in a government SUV. The pair drove in silence, road noise rising and falling as the ONI officer passed vehicles.

At least they weren't flying.

"So, let me get this straight." Nashville started, interrupting the dead silence between the two. The pair hadn't slept while the 2nd Rangers quietly searched the town, and the long night hadn't left either in the mood for small talk. "The Shelton Police department gets a call. Woman warns them about an abyssal knocking over her store. These hicks get their hands on security footage, review the obvious video of an Abyssal ransacking their retail store, and decide we don't need to know about it until working hours?"

"They thought the Alpha-Sierra was one of ours." He replied, the Lieutenant's eyes focused on the highway. "They were waiting for our NCIS office to open."

"That thing's a shipgirl?" The cruiser almost shouted, the expensive cup of coffee shaking enough to slosh against its plastic lid. "Last I checked, we didn't have white skin and glowing eyes!"

It was insulting, in a way. To think one of her comrades would stoop so low! Pretending to be an Abyssal? Had anyone even thought of that?

"Normally, yes," He replied, taking a sip from his own coffee. "But the fine folks in the SPD think that's more likely than the alternative. If you weren't wrapped up in all this, you'd think the same, correct?"

Nashville, stubborn as ever, surrendered the point. It felt dirty, throwing the reputation of the Navy's Shipgirls overboard to keep her own failure a secret, but the flagship part of her knew there was too much else at stake.

"Good." He replied. "If anyone asks, that's the Navy's official stance on the incident."

The GPS interjected, and Murray pulled the SUV off the highway. Even after three months in the future, The cruiser still found the screen addiction everyone seemed to have unnerving. She'd known they were starting to catch on when she'd been scrapped, but no one in the 80's (besides perhaps George Orewell) would have suspected they'd reach such prominence.

Conversation between the two slacked as Nashville focused on the road. She wasn't nearly as susceptible to carsickness as airsickness, but the twists and turns the Lieutenant took required her full attention.

It wasn't long before the pair had reached their destination. Tucked into a cul-de-sac in the heart of a middle-class subdivision, the one-story house sat in the center of a small lot, nestled between bushes and out-of-season flowers. With it being fall, the two dormant trees had started blanketing the front lawn in a quilt of red and brown leaves.

If not for the man raking and bagging them, Nashville wouldn't be sure what path to take to the front door.

Mister Clarke was a man in his later years, a floppy hat obscuring his face in shadow as the SUV came to a halt. Nashville was the first out, her focus on looking professional overwhelming the instinct to fall behind her superior. At the Cruiser's approach, the civilian's eyes widened, showing he wasn't that old, but they almost immediately narrowed again.

"You're not NCIS."

"I'm not," She replied, failing to suppress a smirk at the man's Clint Eastwood impression. Making a note to actually watch one of his movies in the future, preferably with one of her sisters, the Cruiser heald out a hand. "USS Nashville, Office of Naval Intelligence."

Now, Murray was just behind her, and was certainly more qualified for speaking to civilians or… humans in general, but she saw an opportunity here. Sure, it would be awkward if she walked up to the civilian, then abruptly stood aside and let the driver do the talking, but it was more than that. She was pretty sure she knew everything about this incident that her self-assured partner did, and it wasn't like they were planning on doing anything too complicated here anyways. She might not be able to sink anything worth a damn, but she could pick up a civvie without someone holding her hand, right?

Ugh, calling herself a spook. She'd have to wash her mouth later.

"ONI? But that would mean…" The man trailed off, his suspicion replaced with a quiet horror. If it hadn't mirrored the general attitude of Nashville and the rest of the Navy, she would have enjoyed the his abrupt change in attitude.

"The police might not believe her," Murray finally spoke up, taking his position next to Nashville, "but we don't like taking chances when Abyssals could be involved."

"I see." He responded, turning away from the pair. "I'll check to see if she's awake. Come on in."

As the man waved them in, Nashville caught the Lieutenant's questioning look.

"Looking for a transfer?" He whispered, and Nashville flushed.

"At this rate, I think you might be the commander for longer then the Admiral." She gripped, not quite deflecting the question.

"Don't worry." He added, giving Nashville a light pat on the back before entering the house. "I'll make a spy out of you yet."

It took the cruiser a few seconds to follow. Her, a spy? But Lieutenant Murray was just some intel weenie, not some secret agent! What, did he expect her to paint herself white and sneak up on Abyssal Installations? Weren't submarines for that?

How was he always catching Nashville off guard?

Elizabeth Clarke was a woman who clearly hadn't had enough sleep. Nashville knew a sleep-deprived watch officer when she saw one, and while she didn't look anything like one of her old crews, the signs weren't that different. The large… drink (She wasn't sure something with that much cream and sugar could be considered coffee) they'd grabbed on the way back to Lewis-McChord had helped, but judging by the way she was nursing it the drink hadn't finished its job yet.

According to the police report, Elizabeth had the store's late watch. The old woman probably wasn't used to waking up this early, even when she hadn't lost sleep to a close encounter an eldritch abomination and the local police. Could they count on her remembering last night's events accurately?

They didn't have a choice, though. The fact that the Abyssal now had access to a human wardrobe had already been passed down the 7th Infantry's command structure, but with how much of a bitch tracking the monster was proving to be, they needed this information… last night, actually.

"That help?" Nashville asked, motioning to the cup. The nod she got in reply was slow and lazy, but it was a reply. There wasn't much else to do in the featureless interrogation room, so the Cruiser pressed on.

"Glad to hear it." She started, The Brooklyn's mind reviewing possible avenues of approach. Nashville wasn't supposed to be interrogating her until Murray returned, but she had been told to keep an eye on the woman. Nothing crazy had happened to the crew of the Pacific Lilly, such as slow descents into madness or horrible transformations into abyssals themselves, but their target was full of surprises. If being prepared for something as crazy as that made the Navy look paranoid, then…

They probably were. Look, you can't fight eldritch abominations becoming a little loony yourself, alright?

"I hear you had a hell of a night."

Elizabeth finally looked away from her coffee, unshadowing the bags under her eyes. She took a deep breath, letting it out before speaking up.

"You could say that." She hedged, before her face hardened. Suddenly, Nashville found herself on the receiving end of an interrogative glance, all signs of the woman's drowsiness replaced with a cold suspicion. "You knew, didn't you?"

It would take a lot more than an old lady with a stern expression to cow the Cruiser, but Nashville would admit her sudden change caught her off-guard.

"Uh, you mean about the Abyssal?" At her nod, Nashville leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. They weren't technically interrogating her, so instead of the uncomfortable fold-out chairs that normally furnished the interrogation room they were enjoying seats poached from the nearby office. "We didn't."

That's how you lie, right?

"There's a lot about this incident that doesn't add up." The light cruiser continued. "Despite the fact we've been fighting them for years, we still know next-to-nothing about these things. Is this a new Abyssal tactic? A Renegade? We don't know." Nashville shrugged, transitioning to another falsehood. "Hell, we're not even sure the suspect is an abyssal."

"She is." Elizabeth asserted. "I wasn't that tired."

"We'll find out, I'm sure." Nashville replied. "The Lieutenant should be back any time now."

As if on cue, the door to the interrogation room swung open, and a laptop-bearing Murray entered.

"How's your morning been, Misses Clarke?" He said affiliably, laying his laptop on the table.

"Early. I usually get up around this time, but normally I get to sleep a lot… earlier…" Elizabeth's reply trailed off as the Spook placed a sheet of paper on the table, sliding it over to the civilian.

"It's an NDA." He clarified, handing the woman a pen. "You can read through it while I get set up, but the gist is this: We may disclose sensitive information during this interview. By signing this, you are agreeing not to talk about the events of this interview. In return, you can expect compensation once this matter is resolved." At her nod, the spook returned to his work, folding the laptop open.

"That's a pretty big college fund…" Elizabeth murmured, drawing Nashville's attention away from her colleague. The Cruiser leaned over, skimming the legalese for any big numbers, and recoiled.

Maybe her sense of money was stuck in the 80s, but the sum the contract stipulated seemed obscene. What, did Elizabeth have twenty kids? Sure, effectively bribing civilians would do a much better job than relying on them to do their patriotic duty, but if everyone the Abyssal ran into needed this much hush money the cost was going to add up quickly.

Wordlessly, Elizabeth scribbled her signature across the bottom of the page. Murray accepted the contract with a nod before turning the laptop screen so all three- and the wall of one-way glass behind them- could see it.

"Now, let's get started."

The screen bore the grainy image of a parking lot, sparse street lights lighting a lonely car. At a tap of the laptop's space bar, it sprung to life, the darkness surrounding the vehicle crawling with… static? No, that wasn't the term for digital video. What was it called again? Something artifacts?

Nashville's wandering thoughts were refocused as a woman entered the camera's field of view. Even with her head facing away from them and the poor quality of the feed, Nashville immediately recognized the civilian that shared the room with her. As the woman made her way towards her vehicle, another appeared.

"There she is." Nashville commented, the Abyssal's massive cape and unkempt hair recognizable anywhere. Due to the camera's angle, Nashville couldn't determine how she'd entered, but even in the darkness she must have been visible long before entering the feed.

"She was just walking behind me." Elizabeth murmured, "I must have been more tired than I thought."

"When did you notice her?" Murray asked, and Elizabeth pointed.

"Around… here." She said. "She grabs the car's door after I get in."

Really? They were practically on top of each other by that point. Were civilians really that blind? Granted, Elizabeth couldn't rely on her watchmen to prevent someone from getting too close, and they did get tired faster than ships like her, but…

The three watched the Abyssal standing there, Murray walking the Civilian through the unheard conversation and her thoughts.

"Food?"

"That's what she's asked about." Elizabeth replied, "She wanted to know if there was food in the store." Hesitantly, the woman added. "Since she could just walk in, I told her the truth."

On the feed, the Abyssal abruptly turned, revealing her face as she approached the Fred Meyers building. In the video's low quality, her eyes were nothing but blue-and-orange orbs. Almost immediately after, Elizabeth hopped out herself.

"You followed her?" Nashville asked, but the Lieutenant piped up before Elizabeth could reply.

"She's being coerced." The Spook announced, and at the Civilian's affirming nod continued. "Even being next to an Abyssal is a threat of violence."

"Yes." Elizabeth added. "Good thing, too. Otherwise she would have destroyed my store trying to get in."

Except that meant the police would have arrived a lot sooner. Nashville added, but only to herself. She had no doubts as to the chances the lightly-armed cops would have in a firefight with a Wo-class carrier, even with Ranger special forces nearby. It would have been bloody, to say the least. Even if it meant they eventually caught her, would the chaos and destruction have been worth it?

Guess that depends on what she plans to do.

"How did you stop her from damaging your property?" Murray continued, unaware of his partner's inner turmoil.

"Warned her about the alarm… here." Elizabeth responded, as the abyssal abruptly stopped and turned again. The camera feed had changed to one of the store's back entrances, and the woman was just barely out-of-shot. "After that she demanded my keys, so I went back to get them."

After the three watched the conversation in silence, the feed changed again as Elizabeth ran back to her car. She leaned over, her search obscured by the vehicle's roof. Half a minute passed in silence.

"Did you lose your keys?" The Lieutenant finally asked. Apparently, he wasn't alone in his thoughts, as the Abyssal soon re-entered the camera's point-of-view.

"I was trying to call 911, as well." Elizabeth admitted, and winced as the Abyssal almost casually leaned over the human's shoulder.

"You lived?" Nashville asked, not sure if she was incredulous or just confused. "Did she not know what a cell phone was?"

"She thought I was contacting the Navy-er, you."

"She learns pretty quick, then." Lieutenant Murray leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temple in his first breach in composure that day.

"She did." Elizabeth confirmed, using a tone of voice that implied nothing good.

This was going to be a long interview.

"This is what a happy abyssal looks like, huh?"

The Alpha Sierra's demeanor had completely changed. As the Abyssal in the feed cleared the store's aisles, last night's Elizabeth weakly following behind her, Nashville felt… conflicted.

The way the monster would dash between aisles, picking items from the shelves and ogling sweets, portrayed a sense of naked wonder. Nashville was familiar with the feeling, like when she'd watched a 3D printer work or entered a movie theater for the first time. She was reminded of the warship's flustered negotiations with Lieutenant Murray, although the fact she'd ultimately escaped tempered the impression of naivety.

She had been told that abyssals were nothing but creatures of hate and destruction, but reflecting on it the focus had only been on their leaders, The Princesses. The rank-and-file, like the Wo they were chasing, were just obstacles, a threat if underestimated but never strategically influential on their own. Finding one to be relatable was… a little jarring.

It didn't really matter, though. History taught that even the most benign people were capable of terrible damage. At the end of the day, it didn't matter who the Fugitive Princess (and didn't that nickname suddenly feel out of place?) was, but what she was going to do. Even her little romp through the supermarket had caused measurable harm, while public knowledge of her whereabouts could be disastrous.

When the Wo suddenly lingered in front of a fruit stand, Nashville's thoughts were refocused.

"What's so important about those Pineapples?"

"Perhaps she's based from a location where they're rare." Murray replied, thoughtful. "That would narrow our origin candidates quite a lot."

"Actually…" Elizabeth interrupted, shrinking in on herself when the two Navy personnel looked at her. "She'd started wondering about the price tags."

There was a brief moment of silence as the two mulled over that statement. In a way, it made sense. A former steel-hulled ship, having been launched, sailed, and sunk in a world of trade, would have a good grasp of money. However, what reason was there for a princess to pass that knowledge to their underlings?

"I can see that." Murray allowed, watching the Abyssal turn to address the CCTV's Elizabeth. "She asking about it now?"

"Yes." The civilian replied. The two Navy personnel watched the conversation unfold as Elizabeth walked them through it.

"Get a job?" Nashville added, her tone implying she meant to add 'Really?'

"What else was I supposed to tell her?" Elizabeth defended. "The safe is out back, don't hurt it to much?"

Nashville groaned, leaning back in her chair.

"Well, It's not like there's any chance she could get one, anyway. Too obvious." Who in their right mind would hire someone with glowing eyes, anyways? As confirmation, she switched her attention to Murray, only to feel her boiler pressure spike. "Please tell me no one's that stupid."

That was not the face of someone who agreed with you. Following the Lieutenant's gaze, the Light Cruiser found herself focusing again on Elizabeth Clarke.

"Actually…"

"She can turn the eye glow off?"

Even the unshakable Lieutenant Murray was sounding defeated. There was something about his question that undermined his confident persona, a hint of the resignation that was seeping into Operation Absolute Railway at every level.

This time Nashville was expecting Elizabeth's nod, because of fucking course she can. Just like she obviously had to raid a supermarket with clothes and makeup instead of a mere grocery store.

"So, let me summarize." Nashville stated, feeling a need to vent as the feed's Abyssal took her leave from the cosmetics stands. "We have an Abyssal, with access to beauty products to cover her skin, knowledge of basic human behavior to keep her head down, and enough clothes to give all of seventh fleet a new outfit?"

"Yeah." Elizabeth nodded feebly.

Defeated, Nashville sighed, leaning back and allowing Murray to take over completely. What more was there to know? The population of Washington was… big, and the Abyssal now looked like a good portion of it. How the hell could they stop her now? All they could really do was get a description of her clothes and pass it along to the grunts on the perimeter. Otherwise, she was out of ideas.

Unless…

"If she tries to get a job, it's going to create a paper trail, right? Some kind of form we can find?"

Murray shook his head, and the Light Cruiser suddenly got the sense that she was being patronized.

"We don't have the resources to go through every application in the Washington Department of Labor, and even before the war a large amount of employment was undocumented. With the refugee crisis? Unless the NSA has a secret technique to finding people I'm not aware of, she might be gone for good."

The Spook cupped his face in his hands, muttering to himself. "Hell, it might take weeks to convince NORTHCOM to let a domestic intelligence agency to get involved, and by that point she could be anywhere in North America."

Shit. Guess they had to hope the 7th infantry got lucky, didn't they?

When the Abyssal abruptly stripped in front of the camera, Nashville couldn't even summon the energy to rib Miller about it.

"She has an Essex's lines, that's for sure."

It was a weak joke, and Murray treated it as such.

"Twelve Dual-Purpose 5-inchers." The spook replied, his voice grim. "Hundreds of Bofors and Oerlikons. Just under a hundred aircraft. Location unknown."

That had to be the most polite way of saying 'we're screwed' Nashville had ever heard.

This was two chapters on SB and SV, but they were supposed to be one interlude. Here, I can get away with a bit of a longer wordcount. I had another scene planned after this, but it relied on the idea that the ship USS Brooklyn had better quarters for VIPs, but my last-minute research couldn't confirm that so I scratched the scene.

As for potential NSA involvement, I'm not entirely sure. Option 2 for Murray is contacting a private investigator to help track down the Wo, which would need less bureaucratic red tape and allow him/her to get to work faster, but I'm not sure if that's realistic.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed!