Consciousness restored from backups. Initiating full system re-boot. Welcome back, Fleet Intelligence. Please state the nature of the emergency.
The small, blinking line of text was answered in a string, a long, long string of numbers and letters, and a hiss of pressurized air as Akagi found her consciousness slowly returning.
The small flicker over her skin, over her hull, felt strange. Had Akashi been in her works again? Her memory was-
It returned in a flash, the bombings, the breaches, the frantic rush through Martian rust and snow, the desperation on their faces as they entombed themselves within cryocaskets they'd never tested, never seen before.
Her people, were they alright?
Her voice crackled gently.
"Nagato, report."
The artificial intelligence turned to face her, but it was not Nagato, not the face of her friend, instead, a woman with a great deal of cybernetic implants stared up at her, an expression glimmering on her face somewhat like hope, like desperate hope.
"Mom!?"
The voice broke her heart, snapping her back to reality. She had no daughter, this… this was an imposter. Something vile and wrong.
"You are not Akashi, how did you breach these walls? Who are you?"
The figure flickered briefly, carefully, Akagi watched her, watched a myriad of emotions ranging from hope to despair to resignation cross her face, before she nodded and said.
"Right, conversation later. People first. You're about to have company, I've given you all the time I can, but the United Earth Nations marines are about to breach that door and jump right into your business. If you want any chance of establishing yourselves again, you've gotta meet them peacefully and carefully!"
Akagi growled once, low in her throat.
"This one attempted peace once. We will not do so again, they have come to plunder our tomb? We shall tear from them their last breath."
She started moving, the irritating hologram flickering away, where was Nagato? Where was Akashi?
Her voice carried in the darkness, as she spoke a command phrase.
"Awaken the sleepers, all who can fight are to rig up and meet me upon the main entrance as soon as they are capable."
Akagi concentrated, feeling her rigging… why was it shifting like that? It was twisting, carefully shifting around her, this sensation…
Clothing, robes, formed on her body, clothing her in a new kimono that bore dark coloration and blood red sigils. Like an open eye upon the hem and trailing edge.
She felt… strong, stronger than she had in years. A burning desire of protection coursing into who she was, making her… want to be better, stronger, faster. No.
It was not a want.
It was a need. She would be all of those things, whatever was required of her, no matter the cost. If the humans were to come to her door again, begging and clamoring to make her spare parts like her sister and so many before her…?
She'd burn their precious planet until naught but ash remained.
Akagi felt the shift as her rigging manifested, or, started to manifest, and then quickly stopped it from manifesting. Because the forward part of her hull had appeared, in its full size.
She growled deep in her throat, the sound murdering the silence with a rusty knife as she strode for the entrances. If she had to damned well summon her carrier self on the surface of Mars? She'd do it to protect everyone in her path.
The slight chirp of an incoming communication finally made its presence known, and a portion of Akagi faded away, the fox woman found herself seated at a small gazebo, surrounded by flowers.
Instantly, she could tell it wasn't real, just a manifestation of… something to help her communicate with something or someone else.
But who?
"Mom… just… Please hear me out."
A woman took a seat at the table, and Akagi bristled, was this actually her daughter? In any real semblance of the word? She looked her over, conscious of the clear implants and technology that ran up and down her frame.
Brown hair like Akagi's own framed a pair of fox ears on her head, and a single tail swayed behind her. When she opened her eyes, they were the same color as Amagi's, a lilac, beautiful in its extent while remaining bright with the energy and exuberance of youth.
Her face, similar to Akagi's own, but retaining differences, less framed, less filled out, more evidence of the woman, no, the girl's youth. This was a girl, nothing more.
"Akagi… I told you not to rush ahead of me, there is so much to explain and never enough time…"
The aged, war and world weary voice of Nagato cut in, and the beautiful woman took a seat at the table, a steaming teacup already held in her hand. She turned to Akagi, and spoke quietly.
"My apologies, Flagship, I wanted to do this gently, but your daughter is far faster than I am, and much more efficient at breaching into this complex."
Akagi the elder, apparently, took a sip from her teacup to steady her arm, and then she leveled those red eyes onto her younger counterpart, and addressed Nagato firmly.
"Explain. This one does not match anything I remember."
Nagato sighed, in only the way that the former flagship could when confronted with the energy of the newer vessels.
"That is the spirit, and later upgraded chassis, of the Helicopter Carrier Akagi, from the 21st century darkwater navies of Japan, she awakened after her scrapping, and found herself here and in Akashi's datacenter."
"Akashi lives!?"
Akagi's head snaps to the form of her daughter, which prompts Nagato lean forwards, into her view as her daughter shrinks into her seat, coloring a bright red.
"Akagi, please, calm yourself."
Insulted, Akagi rears up, ready to tear Nagato apart.
"My people stand about to be attacked! There is yet another fight on our doorsteps because the humans cannot stop themselves!"
Nagato nodded.
"Yes, but that is not her fault, she is as innocent as any of the rest of us, and for that matter, she is important, because she carries Akashi's last message to us."
The words hit Akagi like a hammerblow, shrinking her into her seat and forcing her head into her hands. Her friend, her last friend, in some ways, is gone. Gone and scattered, and Akagi didn't get to consign her, did not put her spirit to rest. She has to steel herself, and has to push forwards. Her people need her, and when those wine red, dulled to blood, eyes lock onto her Fleet Intelligence, and her daughter. Both sit up straighter.
"Fine, brief me. What do I need to know."
The other two start, stumbling over themselves, and Akagi dismisses her daughter with a glance, the other woman falling into silence as Nagato begins.
"A team from the United Nations Space Corps is currently attempting to breach this facility, Akashi's last gifts to you are permuting through your being at the moment, which is why you feel a little strange. While I'm afraid manifesting a hull will be out of the question for a little longer, it's not as far away as you think."
Akagi processes this information, nods once, and shifts it to the side. Files open and shut, and she feels as though she is… lesser and more, now.
"As for rigging, I'm afraid compromises had to be made while you and the others were in stasis."
Nagato's face turns solemn, and Akagi's daughter flinches when the woman looked at her.
"Your body is… different. It's a construct now, you can mimic flesh and blood, but it's less that and more nanomachines of a specific type."
Akagi freezes, it's hard to process this particular bit of horror as it runs wild in her mind. Is she just a computer? Just some form of digitized intelligence like what the humans tried to do in the arctic? What is she now!? Is she even… ship?
Nagato speaks.
"To answer your question, Akashi managed to figure out what Wisdom Cubes were made of, and she sort of… jailbroke them to make sure you and everyone else survived stasis. The humans are going to be fine, but the rest of your comrades are… more in line with digital, well, consciousnesses. Artificial intelligence, if you will."
She turned her gaze to Akagi's daughter.
"She, Akagi, is one of them, and yes, she is human derived, but she is her own self. Left behind in a network core by humanity."
Akagi snaps her gaze to her daughter, the question on her tongue instantly.
"They abandoned you to rot!?"
Her voice is shrill, breaking, because her mind has been hit with far too many battering rams to let another like this slip through evenly.
Her daughter shrugs, a hard bitten expression that tugs at Akagi's heart on her face, because that expression is one she's seen before. An expression that stares at her in the mirror everytime she looks into it.
In a better time, she would have been there! Been able to help her daughter, her child, but no, humanity decided that they were content to let her rot!
It says something that she's maintaining her concentration through sheer will as her daughter doesn't speak, and Nagato is once more offering sage counsel and advice.
"Akagi, those people will get the doors open, while your daughter is in no current risk, we can work out what we can do to help her after we ensure the sanctity of this compound is not breached."
Akagi nods, and her fleet intelligence nods sagely, a small smile playing about the dark haired woman's face.
"Fare thee well, kitsune, and I'll see you on the other side."
Akagi smiles, it's bitter, but no longer cracks her lips to let them bleed.
The room fades, and she is back, stepping towards the door, her sandals clacking on the ground. Her kimono, rimmed with blood red sigils, carved in that flamelike radiance from before shines in the dark, and Akagi flexes.
Nagato had said it was impossible to manifest her rigging, and she was right, because Akagi can feel just how vast she is now, how her physical hull would take up a truly vast amount of space.
But compared to her hull, manifesting some of her secondary armament is childs play.
As built, Akagi was armed with secondary batteries, designed to serve against both enemy cruisers and aircraft, it is these she calls upon, swirling clouds of grey material constructing the pieces of her 25 millimeter anti aircraft battery. Each one is enhanced, significantly enough for Akagi to tell that they are far more devastating than they would be. In the same fashion she can tell she has a form of defense shrouding her form. Cloaking her, shielding her from it.
The doors creak and hiss, and she can see the system as it's breached, angry red lines of code spiraling out in front of her as the trespassers breach firewalls and last minute defenses, breaking into the system faster than she can track.
The doors shudder again, and begin to creak open.
Akagi settles two of her anti aircraft mounts into the floor next to her, and summons a pair of her true secondaries, heavy cruiser caliber 8 inch guns, but these are different as well, energy weapons, designed to overwhelm armor and punch clean, molten holes through it.
She is… more, than she was.
Local Time: 2400 Hours
March 21, 2161
Location: South Pole of Mars
Expedition 4I1P
Assigned Personnel: Ltcmd Jacks Finley, Sgt Miranda Finley.
Attached Personnel: 12th Marines, 1st platoon.
Research Staff: Doctor Ryan Kline, Doctor Kathleen Wolfe
Stated Purpose of Expedition: Secure Unknown Martian Facility, await further instructions.
"Doctor! How long till those doors are open!?"
Kathleen had to shout over the roaring of the dust storm that was swirling their way. As it had turned out, Mars did have inclement weather, it was just rusty colored dust storms that shook up much of their path if it wasn't dug in. Luckily for them, the marines had dug in, and with Amagi overhead providing air cover, they were safe from the worst of the storm. But the facility… the true prize, that was driving her nuts.
Jacks stared, the doors were almost open, a few sensor techs bypassing the last firewalls even now, Kathleen, her white hair obscured beneath her helmet, turned and smiled broadly at Jacks as she indicated the doors in front of her.
"We're close! I can taste it! Are you ready to make history Lieutenant Commander?"
Jacks could only nod, and with that, Kathleen nodded to the techs, and with a grinding, tearing crash, barely heard over the storm bearing down on them.
The figure standing in the doorway sent shivers down Jacks' spine, and she was twisting instantly, drawing her sidearm and shoving Kathleen out of the way as she drew on the woman that stood in the doorway to a long abandoned facility.
A facility that should have been unarmed.
A facility that should not have had what appeared to be guns ripped from the decks of a World War 2 era warship in the doors.
Long, long brown hair hanging down to the figure's calves framed a face that was supernaturally beautiful, a face that held eyes of a glowing red. She was clad in a traditional kimono, with golden accents and a pair of sigils on the hems, like open, crying eyes in blood red.
She held a fan over the lower half of her face with one articulate, long arm. Her nails were long and razor sharp, and above her head, a pair of fox ears twitched, a medley of distinctly nine tails branching out in front of and to the side of the figure. As she smiled, red eye makeup and her eyes crinkling upwards, she spoke one word.
"Trespassers."
The voice boomed, and Jacks saw her suits systems go red as someone else breached the protocols and locked them down tight.
"What brings little rats like you to my doorstep? Are you scavenging for the bones of my companions?"
Her appearance… terrifying, and her aura.
It took everything in Jacks to not kneel in front of her. She was regal and terrifying, awe inspiring and foreboding, all at once.
But it was Kathleen who did so first.
"Great fox. Admiral of the last fleet, we meant no disrespect."
For a moment, there was no response, the woman staring at them from behind her fan, then a single ear twitched, and a sound that might have been a huff, had they been in an environment with atmosphere.
"I bear no such titles anymore, little scientist. But clearly, you are one of the ones who bears proper respect, so I will return it to you, and not spatter your body about the floors of this vaunted place."
She turned, and beckoned them.
"I, Akagi, welcome you to the last shrine of the Kanmusu, the last refuge of the Fleet of Fog. Or, the last fleet, to choose an expression in your vernacular."
Jacks wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to phrase a completely neutral statement as one of disdain and vitriolic hate, but she wanted to learn, because that was impressive.
Another part of her screamed at her that this creature… this entity, if she was what Kathleen claimed, was one of the most powerful beings on the planet.
"Doctor, are you insane!?"
The woman hissed, purging her comms and waiting for the blue to transmit back, against the unwanted intruder.
Kathleen shook her head, transmitting over the closed circuit.
"That's… that's her. That's Akagi!"
Her voice sounded reverent, almost rapturous as she spoke.
"This is not the time for your pseudo religious ecstasy breaking out, and if you get us all killed by some exotic joydoll that ended up here because it's defective, I swear I'll kill you myself in hell."
Jacks did not expect the weight behind the glare that the scientist sent her way. It spoke of pain, suffering and longing, desperate longing.
"I have spent over 30 years of my life looking for my family, all traces of it. I was a child when I lost them, and so help me goddess Jacks, I would rather shoot myself in the foot than harm one of you, but you cannot keep me from this. They are too damned important to me."
Then, the scientist rose, and stepped forwards, vanishing into the darkness of the rooms beyond.
"Miranda, secure the site, no one in or out, Irons, your squad is with me, we clear and follow the crazy egghead before she gets us all shot and killed."
The man behind her nodded, smirking as he privately commed her.
"So, into the frying pan it is?"
Jacks grit her teeth.
"Remind me, if we survive this, that Kathleen owes us enough ice cream and alcohol to drown the fuckers in HIGHCOM."
"Will do Commander. Will do."
With that, the two stepped forwards, and vanished into the darkness, followed by the rest of Irons' squad. The men and women fanned out, Irons casually inspecting the massive guns that tracked them.
"Christ, Jacks… these are 25 mike mikes… ain't no body armor save Amagi's belt that will stop those fucking things…"
The Lieutenant commander nodded, swallowing her nervousness as she moved deeper into the darkness, following the faint sound of Wolfe's footsteps, and watching as the floating anti aircraft guns took pace with them.