Hey there. USS Dick here.

I was kinda surprised when my railguns worked that well. I have like, two of ’em. No, I don’t know why an aircraft carrier has railguns. Maybe it’s coz we’re the only ones with nuclear reactors? Railguns seem like they’d need nukes to power. America probably thought “Yeah sure let’s do it” and bam, Dick-class aircraft carrier.

By what I could tell, those UFOs were trashing the Japanese Navy around pretty depressingly. My top speed was stuck at 25 knots—a little bit slower than most ships nowadays, apparently—so I couldn’t exactly come to the rescue.

My railguns have a maximum range of 80 miles, which is like, really far. I’ve got thousands of shots in stock, so I don’t have to worry about running out for a while.

Thing is, I spotted the Japanese Navy about 200 miles away. I ignored them for a bit, hoping to slip by them, but it looked like they were running in parallel with us. I was thinking like, “Oh shit, do they have magic radar? They following us or something?” but apparently no, they were just heading to Merika like us, as I’d later find out.

At some point, I noticed a bunch of weird signatures on an intercept course with them, so I decided that they were in trouble.

I went ahead and closed the distance, but they got attacked before we could get there. It kinda helped me in a way that they were forced to stop. Poor bastards, though.

I asked Sam and Oreo to go and lure them to me. Even if my maximum range is 80 miles, I can’t hit moving jack shit at that range. If the jack shit were stationary, I could’ve, but they weren’t. As a bit of an experiment, I also asked them to carry a pair of SAMs just so I could see if I could remotely activate them.

Apparently I can.

Then yeah. Yay, we rescued the Japanese!

Then I overheard the bomb.

American Civil War all over again, huh—well, Merikan Civil War.

Apparently Merika’s been cut off from the world for the past year. This was a be-all, fuck-all scenario for the rest of the world who desperately needed help.

Turned out that the Japanese Emperor himself thought “fuck it” and personally tried to travel to Merika to do the negotiations himself. Of course, he came with an escort, but it looks like he’s down to two rickety battleships.

As for the battleships themselves, they look like they’d roll over if you blew on them, but there’s magic n’ shit, so they float nicely on open ocean, apparently.

***

I got pretty smug when they realized I was a fuckin’ aircraft carrier, my dudes.

I’m kinda liking this “Oh shit, it’s not an island! It’s a ship!” then I’d go {Naw, I’m a fuckin’ aircraft carrier} routine—I mean, sure, I’ll get tired of it sometime, but let’s enjoy it while we’re here and all, y’know.

It’s not like I’m mad at Sam for not telling me, though. Deciding what my country wants isn’t really my job, y’know. I just carry—dragons, pirates, and… heads of government—yeah, I’m not doing a good job as an aircraft carrier, huh…

As far as I’m concerned, Sam is also basically the second-in-command after the king, so she’s my C.O. starting last month. Come to think of it, I have something to ask her.

I usually just look through the CCTV’s, but I do have blind spots. If I can’t find her, she’s usually in her private quarters, and in this case, looks like she is.

{Sam?}

I can’t really physically knock on a door, so what I do is I disengage the locking mechanism.

“Whuh?! O Great Holy Island! I am changing!”

{Ahfuckmybad.}

I re-engage the lock. This happens sometimes. Don’t mind it.

After a while, she opens the door herself and kneels in front of the PA speaker beside her door. It’s kinda weird, but I just roll with it.

“Yes, Great Holy Island?”

{It’s kinda weird when you call me that but-uhhh anyway—I just had a few questions.}

“Yes, Great—guy.”

The princess is blushing. I’m honestly amazed.

{I do believe I’m a great guy, if I say so myself.}

“I-it is as you say.”

{Alriiiight—anyway, I just think it’s weird that you came alone.}

“Yes. I was dispatched on a secret mission to locate the legendary Holy Island.”

{The heck, all the way across the ocean?}

“Yes. We were operating from Earl Harbor. Secretly.”

Earl Harbor—Pearl Harbor? Who ran over the P and left it in a ditch?

{… You sure no one’ll suspect the princess’s disappearance—}

“Operating. Secretly.”

{I-I see.}

“Then, I bid my leave. I must attend to our guests.”

{Sure.}

She gets up and paces the wrong way down the corridor. Before I correct her, she turns around and doubles back the other way.

You can try hiding your burning face, Sam, but not from me and my totally-not-invasive CCTV’s.

***

Sam and Emperor Hiiro struck a deal. The Japanese Navy will go with us as escorts, so their battleships slowed down to match my pace, which miffed me, really—you calling me fat, huh?! But a-at least I’m a fuckin’ aircraft carrier! Damn it.

Their ships looked kinda like ships-of-the-line from more flat-earthy times. Still somehow looked hella Japanese, though—they’re scary-good at taking not-Japanese things and making it somehow Japanese as if they had it all along, huh?

There’s a bunch of damage here and there, but they weren’t sinking. Kinda amazing.

All of the wounded were transferred to me. We also managed to fish out a looot of sailors, so now we have to take care of over 1000 people, but I can take it, coz I’m a fuckin’ you-know-what.

I left the pirates to take care of crowd control—you can do it, guys. I also made sure to lock most of the doors to keep people from getting lost and bumping into some of the rare mimics that Sam and Oreo hadn’t killed off yet.

With that—Carrier Group Dick! Go!

… That sounds fuckin’ terrible.

***

The Japanese started complaining about the canteen menu. Fair enough, I’m not a Japanese aircraft carrier, plus stuff made of mystery ingredients ain’t exactly healthybeans.

Experiment, begin!

I give some of their better cooks access to the kitchen. I didn’t have a CCTV in there, so I let a Rumba follow them in with a wireless IP camera strapped to it. They give it a cute name.

“Ah, watch out for Rumba-san.” “Gomen, Rumba-sama!”

They’ve gone and deified it within two minutes. There is now a designated sexy secretary carrying Rumba-sama, and a Rumba shrine in the corner of the kitchen. I mean, I’ve got a better view now, and the designated Rumba’s safer, I guess.

The kitchen itself is pretty big. I mean like, it’s the size of a mess hall. There are actually several canteens and kitchens scattered throughout the ship. Most of the kitchens are automated, but there are a few token ordinary kitchens around. This just happens to be the largest one.

Here’s a fun find: there’s an ingredients chute near the kitchen door. I had Rumba-sama instruct the chefs to toss something in there.

Something ticked up. Looks like it goes straight into my ingredients inventory, huh.

There’s also some information here about deep freezing—and before you ask, no, I don’t see weird screens pop up in front of me; I just know—so it looks like ingredients take some time to freeze and defrost.

Damn, though, the size of the freezers.

I’ve got enough storage and food handling facilities to potentially feed 5000 people for 2 months—though, right now we’ve got about 2 weeks for 1000 people, so the clock’s ticking down.

Looks like one of the battleships is peeling off and fishing.

Yep, it’s sidelining as some sort of deep sea trawler. As expected of the Japanese.

Eventually they brought out a comically-oversized harpoon cannon. I was laughing until they speared the hugest fucking whale I’d ever seen—took both the battleships to haul and recover, and a little bit of magic and cranery to haul on-board.

Sam and a bunch of ninjas had fun dismantling it with sword skills I didn’t think was possible. No matter how you look at it, a 3-yard sword shouldn’t go deeper than 3 yards, right? So why’s it going through the whole thickness of the whale, huh?

And yeah, I said ‘ninjas’. No, I didn’t see them, but Sam was conversing normally with them. I really don’t understand.

Well, I guess that solved the culinary dissatisfaction issue for about a week. On the other hand, it’s kinda scary to think that 1000 Japanese could go through a whale big enough to throw my balance off. Seriously, I fucking tilted when they put it on my deck. Where’s all that whale going, huh? Y’all ever actually shit that out someday, or did portal technology survive somehow?

We arrived just outside the west coast of Merika, only to be greeted by the rebel fleet.