41.446622, -71.399074
Archerfish quickly sailed south, out of Port Judith's harbor and into Rhode Island Sound. Surface traffic was light, even with Brockton Bay's fishing boats far to the east. Still, a P3 Orion made her curious before she realized it was heading south toward Port Hudson.
It's not that she was worried about someone following her; normally, finding submarines on the surface with their small footprints in the open ocean can be difficult, which adds to the difficulty of her weird radar return. But she also wasn't alone this time.
The American submarine couldn't say she was surprised after retrieving the Spinner's dead to find the ship's spirit standing on the water above her.
Cute, petite with white hair accented by blue streaks, the patrol boat shipgirl wore a blue shark hood-style hat over a white blouse and dark blue skirt (although its short knee-high length was questionable) of a Coast Guard uniform, complete with fins on the sides and a row of teeth outlining the hood's opening.
After dropping off the dead, the submarine found the patrol boat shipgirl right where she left her. The two having decided that the Coast Guard wasn't quite ready to meet one of their ships in girl form.
At least not yet.
"Thank you, Archerfish," she said sadly. "They were a good crew. Although they were outgunned, they put up a hell of a fight."
"That they did, Spinner, that they did," the submarine looked east toward Brockton Bay. "So, what do you want to do now?"
"Don't know; as I said before, you're the flagship; you're in charge," the patrol boat shipgirl shrugged. "This is so weird; you know I always wanted to talk to you."
"I did, too, but I could always feel you watching."
"But you couldn't hear my voice, which sucked totally. But now."
"Yeah, it's going to be nice having someone else with me on my patrols. Speaking of anything interesting going on?"
"Not really; considering what happened this morning, surface traffic is unsurprisingly light, but I will tell you this, my guys are pissed. I'm not sure what's going on, but people aren't happy. Wish I could listen to the PRT channels, though, but oh well."
"That's more than I can do. It's going to be nice to have someone with electronics made before the nineteen fifties. The first time I contacted the Coast Guard, I accidentally used sixty-year-old codes."
"Yeah, I'll help you out, granny," the patrol boat shipgirl reached into her hoodie. "See, this is a smartphone. We use it to make phone calls. You can toss the two rocks and string away now."
"So, your not just a shipgirl but a comedian too."
Spinner laughed, wiping the tears from her eyes. "They were a great crew."
Archerfish reached over and grabbed the shipgirls hand, giving it a squeeze as the two turned to the northeast.
"So, we need to enter Brockton Bay harbor. I can remain hidden, but I'm sure someone will notice you." The American submarine then clapped. "Oh, I know. Let's get a lift."
About fifteen minutes later, Spinner commented, "You know, you're kind of slow, granny."
"You think so." Archerfish nodded thoughtfully, then cheerfully replied in a swirl of light, "I'm Yuudachi, a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer. Let's like, do our best today! Poooi!"
"Wait, that's cheating. How does that even work?" the shipgirl leaned forward. "Wow, OK, I call shenanigans."
With a laugh, the Japanese destroyer yelled, "Catch me if you can."
Northern Docks, Brockton Bay
Late in the day, the last of the Brockton Bay fishing fleet made safe harbor; even with the terrible news on the radio, it had been a good day of fishing. Hidden among the returning boats, though, were two shipgirls.
As the pair stepped off the fishing boat, Yūdachi turned and bowed toward its Captain.
"Lift wa itadaki Arigatou gozai masu, Saitou san."
The older Japanese man laughed, "Oh, course, Yūdachi-sama. Anytime you need a lift, just let me know. It was good meeting you too, Spinner-sama."
With a smile, the new girl gave a friendly wave to the crew before taking her first hesitant steps on dry land.
"So weird."
Then looked up with a grin, finding the Japanese destroyer now bearing two plastic bags of fresh fish. She hadn't taken two steps before being passed a third bag.
"Seems I'm bringing home dinner."
"Well, that's a thing," the patrol boat shipgirl laughed. "Happen often?"
"I like fish."
"Funny, so this is Brockton Bay. It seems brighter than before."
"You can see the miasma over the city."
"I never really got this close to the city, but yeah. Feels better, you do great work," the white-haired shipgirl said approvingly.
"Not something I'm doing consciously," Yūdachi shrugged, then pointed towards the southern end of the docks. "I need to change down by the boardwalk. Mom's going to pick us up."
"Cool."
As they proceeded through the docks, the two were stopped several more times when a voice called out to them.
"Yūdachi."
Turning around, the shipgirls watched two Miko's approaching.
"Keiko," Yūdachi tried to wave with her fish. "Wow, look at you."
Her friend, dressed in red and white, approached sedately for a moment, then giggled and ran forward, spinning around. However, the other girl shook her head with a smile and continued walking slowly.
"I know. Dad and Mom were so happy, and you thought Bachan won the lottery. Me, Alice," she pointed to the girl who now joined them. "And Sora have been spending every evening learning the steps of the kagura."
"Hi Yūdachi," the second Miko greeted her. "I'll admit we have learned a lot."
Keiko nodded. "Mrs. Takahashi has been working us to the bone, but I think it went great."
"We saw the three of you dancing while sailing into the bay; it did look good. Do you think you can get someone to send me a video? I'd like to see all of it."
"Of course," Keiko almost squeed.
The two Miko's then realized Yūdachi said 'we,' now getting a good look at the white-haired girl standing behind their friend for the first time.
"Oh, sorry, Alice, Keiko, this is my good friend Spinner."
"Like the" Alice's eyes widened, and then both Miko's bowed deeply.
"It's an honor to meet you, Spinner-sama."
The ship girl was quick to grin and wave her hands. "Please, no need for the bowing. It's nice to meet both of you, too."
"Did you guys see how many people are wandering around?" Keiko pointed behind her." Never seen the docks so busy."
"We even met two members of the Wards," Alice said. "Assault and Battery, too."
"Vista's so cool," Keiko announced happily.
Alice nodded, then leaned a little closer. "I think they were asking about you, Yūdachi."
"Thanks for the heads up."
"Oh," Keiko turned, hearing someone calling her. "We have to go. I'll text you guys later."
"Hey, want to meet up at the new shrine?" Alice asked. "The official opening isn't until the week after next, but I bet Grandfather wouldn't mind me showing you around before then."
"Sure, although I'll have to check my schedule," Yūdachi replied.
"Cool, Spinner-sama, you're also invited," Alice said with a grin, then gave a small wave as the two ran off to join the other Miko.
Yūdachi put the bags of fish into her hull. "All right, let's go. I can already tell Mom's a mess."
"Aye, Aye, Captain."
With a chuckle, Yūdachi led them off the docks and into Brockton Bay proper.
New York, main office of the Department of the Protectorate
"What a nightmare."
Legend, one of the members of the Triumvirate, ran his hands through his curly brown hair. It has been a very long day. He didn't expect it to start with a frantic call from Alexandria, wanting to know what was happening in his city.
Apparently, the President of the United States more or less accused them of interfering with the Coast Guard's duties, which wasn't totally wrong. However, she was blindsided by the accusations that someone in the PRT was responsible for the attack upon the Coast Guard patrol boat.
Director Wilkins, head of the NYC department, who hadn't left his office all day, looked up as the young woman who entered his office appeared just as tired as the two of them.
"Finally," he whispered.
"So, Chatter-fox, what do you think is going on," Legend asked.
Lisa Wilbourn was a new parahuman attached to the New York Wards and a much-needed Thinker. Unfortunately, like most of those with her power, and much to her fellow Ward member's annoyance, she had to be the smartest person in the room. However, her skills, especially in this situation, proved invaluable.
Grimacing, the Thinker took a sip of office coffee before sitting down. "Well, they're not wrong, you know." She half-smirked, answering the question that Legend had not asked. "However, this wasn't someone being sneaky from the Washington Office."
"From what I can see, it was all good intel. We knew down to the last minute when Skidmark would make a run for Brockton Bay. Director Piggot had everything ready on her end to surprise him and Squealer when they showed up. However, although most of the information given to the PRT wasn't wrong, someone on the PRT intel team decided to tell the Russians to push up the date."
"So, it was a leak inside our local branch, not an order from someone outside." Director Wilkins groaned. It was as he feared.
"Apparently, but the PRT hasn't made it easy considering the infighting between the different government branches; unsurprisingly, they blame us. Both the FBI and DEA had their own operations going on, and the PRT just walked in, destroying a two-year-long surveillance by telling them to bugger off that it fell under the Protectorate responsibility."
Legend and Wilkins cringed. They had encouraged their teams to have good relationships with the other law enforcement agencies, but admittedly, that had been a terrible decision.
"Add to the fact that they still have their own people working on this; the FBI confirmed that the call to the Russians to have Skidmark leave early came from the PRT. What do you expect?"
"We planned to tell the Coast Guard of their departure, though."
"And you think that anyone would believe us, Boss?" Lisa asked Legend.
"So, do you know who it might have been?"
"Commander Jacobson's wife went into unexpected labor yesterday evening; he hadn't even been watching the news. However, no doubt it was a member of his team, someone on the Russian's payroll. I have an idea who it might be, but let's see if they decided to have an unexpected emergency at home, missing the team meeting you just set up."
"Do you think whoever it is will make a run for it?" the NYC Director then questioned, sounding a bit concerned.
Lisa grinned. "Absolutely, I don't think they expected this to blow up so spectacularly. Skidmark escape should have just been another missed opportunity."
"And now we have three members of the Coast Guard dead, two wounded, and a sunk patrol craft." the Director sighed. Having been in the military, he felt personally responsible for this mess.
Lisa took another sip of her coffee. "Good thing those shipgirls were in the area. Otherwise, it would have been more of a clusterfuck."
"Language," Legend whispered but without any heat.
Those water-powered parahumans were frustrating not just to Thinkers but most of Cauldron. Worse, Contessa claimed there was no path for them, and if pushed, she warned that way lay monsters. Whatever the hell that meant.
"You met one, right? Archerfish, the submarine girl?"
Lisa shivered.
In another life, Chatter-fox had been named Sarah Livsey, a young runaway who had just arrived at the boardwalk of Brocton Bay. Running into that girl had been a total surprise, and having her power totally losing it had been frightening.
That shipgirl was no parahuman, much less human. Not that the Protectorate truly believed her, but that didn't matter. Lisa's small knowledge of Archerfish had allowed her to join the Wards on her terms to a degree. Something also told the young Thinker that she dodged a bullet and should thank Archerfish for getting her out of that hellhole called Brockton Bay.
"They give me a headache, boss, and my power screams like a little girl around them," she smiled jokingly, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Politically, this whole thing is a shit storm, but trust me, it would have been much worse if those girls hadn't come to the Spinner's aid."
Director Wilkins turned and pulled up something on his computer. "I am going to call two PRT members that I trust. Let's coordinate with their strike teams to get this guy into custody as soon as he makes a break for it. Maybe we can round up some more of these people."
Lisa saluted with a foxlike grin. "Yes, sir."