3rd-Person Point of View
Date: Saturday, July 3rd, 2021
Time: 11:54 PM
Location: USS Nimitz, USS Nimitz Carrier Task Force, Gulf of Aden, off the Coast of Somalia
Exactly two months had passed since Mary Elizabeth "Nightwitch" Nimitz had died surrounded by her daughters aboard the aircraft carrier that shared her family name, and the wound she left behind remained far from healed even as the world expected Azur Lane and the United States Navy to continue moving. USS Nimitz cut through the warm black waters of the Gulf of Aden at the heart of a large task force, her flight deck illuminated beneath the night sky while aircraft sat secured between periods of operations connected to the growing pirate threat along the Somali coast. USS Princeton and USS Philippine Sea held their places within the formation, while USS Sterett, USS John Paul Jones, and USS Ralph Johnson formed the carrier's destroyer screen and USNS Yukon remained positioned to support the force as required. Sailors worked beneath red lighting throughout the carrier's interior, radar operators watched the surrounding sea and sky, and engineering personnel maintained the steady pulse of a warship that seemed almost too large and complicated to ever become silent. Yet aboard Nimitz, Mary was never truly absent from anyone's thoughts, because too many corridors, rooms, and ordinary moments still carried memories of the woman who had once walked them.
Enterprise stood inside one of the carrier's observation spaces, looking through reinforced glass toward the dark sea, her reflection staring back at her between the scattered lights of the escort ships. She had healed enough to function, enough to fly, enough to command, and enough to smile occasionally without feeling as though she were betraying her mother's memory, but two months had done nothing to remove the aching emptiness that appeared whenever she instinctively turned to find Mary nearby. Yorktown stood beside her older sister's shoulder, remaining silent because she understood that some grief needed companionship more than words, while Hornet occupied a chair nearby with one boot resting against another seat. New Jersey leaned against the bulkhead with her arms folded, and Belfast quietly poured tea from a small service set she had stubbornly continued using despite Mary's final request that she occasionally allow someone else to prepare it. None of them had deliberately gathered because of the date, yet every one of them knew exactly what night it was.
Hornet stared at the clock and released a long breath before breaking the silence. "I hate that I know what time it is without checking," she admitted, dropping her boot from the chair and leaning forward with her elbows against her knees. "I keep telling myself I'm not going to count the minutes every month, but my brain apparently doesn't care what I want." Enterprise turned slightly toward her but did not answer immediately. "I've been doing the same thing," she finally confessed, resting one hand against the window. "I woke up this morning knowing exactly what today was, and I have spent all day pretending I wasn't waiting for 11:58." Yorktown's expression softened as she looked between her sisters. "I think all of us were waiting for it."
New Jersey closed her eyes and rubbed one hand slowly over her face. "I almost went to bed early just so I wouldn't see the clock," she said, the normally energetic battleship speaking in a voice far quieter than usual. "Then I realized I'd just lie there staring at the ceiling until midnight like an idiot, so here I am." Belfast carefully placed a cup near her before handing another to Enterprise. "There is nothing foolish about remembering the exact moment someone important to us died," she answered. "Mary would undoubtedly tell us that we are allowed to hurt tonight." Enterprise accepted the cup but did not drink. "She'd also tell us to stop hovering around each other like somebody might break."
Hornet gave a weak laugh. "Then she'd hover worse than all of us combined."
Yorktown smiled faintly before looking back at the clock. 11:57 PM. The numbers struck her harder than she expected. She remembered the medical compartment. She remembered Mary's fading voice. She remembered holding Hornet while Enterprise clung desperately to their mother's hand. She remembered the physician looking toward the clock.
Yorktown swallowed. "Almost time," she whispered. Enterprise's fingers tightened around the untouched teacup. Then the clock changed: 11:58 PM.
Everything went black. The lights vanished so completely that for one impossible second the enormous USS Nimitz seemed to cease existing around them. The ventilation noise stopped. The distant vibration beneath the deck faded. The illuminated escort ships outside the window became the only visible objects in a room suddenly swallowed by darkness.
Enterprise instinctively dropped the teacup and reached toward Yorktown. "What the hell happened?" she shouted as porcelain shattered somewhere near her boots. New Jersey pushed away from the bulkhead immediately, her combat instincts overriding grief as she spread one arm to keep the others from moving blindly. "Nobody move until emergency lighting comes up!" she ordered, her voice hard and controlled despite the shock racing through her. Belfast had already reached toward the wall where she knew an emergency station should be, but there was no indicator light waiting beneath her fingers. "This is not a localized failure," she said sharply. "Everything around us dropped at the same moment."
Hornet stood slowly in the darkness. "Enty," she whispered.
Enterprise heard something in her voice. "What?"
Hornet swallowed. "The engines."
Everyone became still. The immense underlying vibration they had unconsciously associated with USS Nimitz was almost gone.
Far beyond their compartment, confusion erupted across the carrier as bridge consoles died, primary radar displays vanished, communications went silent, elevators halted, flight-deck lighting disappeared, and sailors instinctively reached for flashlights while emergency procedures began throughout the ship. Aircraft handlers on deck froze where they stood as nearly every surrounding electrical light vanished beneath them, leaving only the stars and distant escort ships illuminating the carrier's enormous outline. Inside combat-information spaces, operators called out to one another through darkness while backup equipment attempted to activate, and engineering personnel reacted with disbelief as systems that should never have failed together somehow collapsed almost simultaneously. USS Nimitz, centerpiece of the entire formation, had abruptly become a gigantic dark silhouette moving through the Gulf of Aden.
On USS Princeton, watchstanders immediately detected the carrier's sudden disappearance from normal communications and began attempting contact through every available channel. USS Philippine Sea altered her own watch posture while destroyers throughout the screen tightened their awareness of the surrounding waters, each ship reacting to the sudden uncertainty around their flagship. USS Sterett, USS John Paul Jones, and USS Ralph Johnson maintained their protective positions while their crews tried to determine whether the event represented mechanical failure, sabotage, electronic attack, or the opening moments of something far worse. USNS Yukon remained outside the immediate carrier formation but received urgent notifications that Nimitz had suffered a major power casualty. Nobody within the task force yet possessed an explanation for how an aircraft carrier could lose so many unrelated primary systems at almost exactly the same instant.
Twenty-seven seconds after the blackout, dim emergency lighting flickered alive throughout portions of USS Nimitz.
Hornet exhaled sharply when Enterprise's face appeared in the faint red illumination. "Okay, I officially hated that," she said, pressing one hand against her chest. Enterprise barely acknowledged the comment because her attention had shifted toward the deck beneath her feet. "I can feel something," she murmured. New Jersey frowned. "The ship?" Enterprise slowly nodded. "Barely."
Belfast retrieved a handheld radio, attempted several channels, and heard only intermittent bursts until an emergency internal circuit finally returned. A voice from the carrier's crew announced that limited backup power was being restored and ordered personnel to remain at their assigned emergency stations. Moments later another message followed, reporting that one reactor remained available in a backup capacity and that engineering personnel were restoring enough electrical generation to support critical systems. The ship was not returning to normal operations, however, because the available output would provide only approximately twenty-five percent of the carrier's total usable power. Essential lighting, navigation, limited sensors, damage-control functions, critical communications, and selected support systems could operate, but the vessel had effectively been reduced from a fully functioning supercarrier to a wounded ship capable only of protecting herself and maintaining essential control.
New Jersey stared upward as several nearby lights brightened enough for the room to become recognizable again. "Twenty-five percent," she repeated, disbelief and irritation mixing within her voice. "You're telling me this entire carrier just dropped dead without warning, and we're getting a quarter of her back from one reactor?" Belfast nodded slowly. "That is what the announcement indicates." Hornet looked toward the clock.
It still displayed 11:58 PM after rebooting. Her face changed. "Guys."
Nobody answered at first. Hornet pointed. Enterprise followed her gaze. New Jersey stopped breathing for a moment. Belfast's expression became pale.
Yorktown simply stared. The oldest of the three Yorktown sisters felt every piece of the impossible event suddenly collide inside her mind. The date. Two months. The exact minute. The ship going dark.
The strange sensations they had experienced during the hours immediately following Mary's death. The unexplained feeling that something had moved through USS Nimitz when they escorted their mother's body away. And something else. Something so fundamental to the nature of every Kansen that nobody had considered applying it to Mary because Mary had been human. Yorktown's hands began trembling. "Enterprise," she whispered.
Enterprise turned toward her immediately. "What?"
Yorktown looked terrified. "I need you to remember something."
Hornet straightened when she heard the strain in her sister's voice. "Yorktown?"
Yorktown ignored her for a moment and focused entirely upon Enterprise. "What happens to our ship forms if someone removes our Wisdom Cube?" she asked.
The question changed the entire atmosphere. Enterprise stared at her. New Jersey slowly unfolded her arms. Belfast's eyes widened. Hornet's mouth opened without producing a sound.
Enterprise finally answered. "They stop functioning."
Yorktown nodded once. "Our Wisdom Cubes are our hearts," she continued, her voice shaking harder now. "Not metaphorically, Enty. Our ship forms exist because the Cube gives them life. Their power systems, our rigging, the connection between our human forms and the ships we manifest…everything begins with the Cube."
Enterprise stared toward the deck. Yorktown stepped closer. "And what did Nimitz just do?"
Nobody answered. Yorktown's eyes filled with tears. "She went dark at exactly 11:58 PM."
Enterprise looked at the clock again. "No," she whispered.
Yorktown grabbed her arm. "Enty, listen to me."
Enterprise turned sharply toward her. "Our mother died at 11:58 PM."
Hornet shook her head immediately. "Yorktown, don't do this to us unless you're sure."
"I'm not sure!" Yorktown cried, the force of her emotion startling everyone in the room. "I'm not sure about anything, Hornet, but I remember what happened after Mom died. I remember feeling the ship move when it hadn't moved. I remember that strange warmth. I remember instruments flickering. We all dismissed it because we were grieving."
New Jersey stepped forward. "You think there was a Wisdom Cube aboard Nimitz."
Yorktown looked toward her. "I think there still should be one."
Belfast's voice became very quiet. "Should be?"
Yorktown wiped tears away angrily. "If Mom somehow became connected to a Wisdom Cube after she died, and if that Cube became the heart of this carrier the way ours are the hearts of our ship forms, then Nimitz losing nearly everything at 11:58 tonight might not be a power failure."
Enterprise's face went white. "It could mean the heart left the ship."
Nobody moved. The emergency lighting hummed around them. Then Enterprise started toward the door. Yorktown grabbed her wrist. "I know where we need to look."
Enterprise looked back at her. "Where?"
Yorktown's answer came instantly. "The heart of the ship."
Time: 12:13 AM
Location: Engineering Access Passageways, USS Nimitz
Enterprise, Hornet, Yorktown, New Jersey, and Belfast moved rapidly through the carrier under escort from several Navy personnel who had been assigned to investigate portions of the unusual power event. The deeper they descended, the more obvious the carrier's crippled condition became, because entire passageways remained dark while others operated beneath emergency lighting and portable lamps carried by sailors working around the clock. Equipment normally alive with sound had gone quiet, and systems still operating produced an uneven mixture of vibrations that made the enormous carrier feel wounded rather than dead. Enterprise hated the sensation because she could almost imagine USS Nimitz gasping for breath. She also hated the hope growing inside her chest, because hope had nearly destroyed her when Mary died and she was terrified of allowing it to return.
A Navy engineering officer walking with them repeatedly glanced toward Yorktown. "Ma'am, I understand you believe there may be something unusual near engineering, but every accessible compartment in this ship has been inspected thousands of times," he said, struggling to reconcile respect for the Kansen with the apparent impossibility of what she was suggesting. "There is no undocumented Wisdom Cube chamber anywhere aboard this carrier." Yorktown never slowed. "There shouldn't be," she answered. "But if Wisdom Cube energy created it, you wouldn't necessarily have built the compartment yourselves."
The officer frowned. "I don't understand."
New Jersey looked toward him. "Welcome to our lives."
Hornet almost laughed despite everything.
They entered a broad engineering-access area where sailors were already examining systems connected to the blackout. The surviving backup reactor arrangement had stabilized enough output to maintain roughly twenty-five percent power, but every attempt to recover the carrier's missing primary capacity had failed without revealing a conventional reason. Connections tested intact. Systems that should have responded refused to behave as expected. Control equipment appeared functional when isolated, yet large portions of the ship remained almost unnaturally unwilling to accept restored power.
Yorktown stopped. Enterprise nearly collided with her. "What is it?"
Yorktown slowly turned her head toward the bulkhead. "I feel something is missing."
Enterprise frowned. "Missing?"
Yorktown placed one hand against the steel. "Yes."
Hornet approached beside her. "I don't feel anything."
"I didn't at first."
Yorktown closed her eyes.
She had been the oldest of the three sisters, the one who had spent years watching Enterprise and Hornet grow, suffer, recover, and find themselves again. That same instinct now reached toward the ship around them, searching not for mechanical vibration but for the deeper sensation all Kansen understood when they stood aboard something tied to Wisdom Cube energy. The absence struck her more strongly than any presence could have. It felt like standing beside someone and discovering their heartbeat was gone.
Yorktown opened her eyes. "Behind this wall."
The engineering officer shook his head immediately. "There is nothing behind that section except structural spacing and routed service connections."
Yorktown looked directly at him. "Then explain the door."
Everyone turned. At first nobody understood what she meant. Then Enterprise saw it. A narrow outline had appeared within the bulkhead.
It looked old and new at the same time, as though a doorway had always existed there without anyone's mind being able to recognize it. No standard Navy markings identified the compartment. No handle matched ordinary shipboard hardware. No warning stencil, compartment number, damage-control symbol, or access classification appeared anywhere upon its surface.
Only one symbol existed. A glowing cyan cube. Hornet stepped backward. "Oh, my God."
New Jersey stared at the symbol. "Tell me everybody else sees that."
"I see it," Belfast whispered.
The engineering officer raised his flashlight and visibly paled. "That door isn't on our plans."
Enterprise approached it with tears already gathering in her eyes. "Yorktown."
Yorktown nodded. "I know."
Enterprise slowly raised one hand. The cyan cube symbol brightened before her fingers actually touched it. Then the hidden door opened. No mechanical lock disengaged. No hydraulic mechanism moved. The steel simply divided along seams that had not existed moments before and withdrew into the surrounding structure.
Cyan light spilled into the passageway. Everyone froze. Beyond the doorway waited a chamber that should not have fit inside the known dimensions of USS Nimitz.
The room was circular, its walls covered in faint luminous patterns reminiscent of electrical circuits, vascular systems, and Kansen rigging diagrams woven together into something nobody present could completely understand. Heavy structural conduits seemed to converge toward the center from every direction, making the chamber resemble the literal heart of the carrier rather than an engineering compartment. At the center stood a pedestal surrounded by metal structures shaped almost like protective ribs.
The pedestal was empty. Enterprise's breathing stopped. Yorktown entered first. Hornet followed. New Jersey stepped through behind them with Belfast and the stunned Navy personnel. The moment the Kansen crossed the threshold, they understood.
Every one of them had felt something similar before. Birth. Manifestation. The strange connection between identity, vessel, memory, and Wisdom Cube.
Belfast covered her mouth. "My God."
New Jersey approached the pedestal cautiously. "Something sat there."
Yorktown nodded. "A Wisdom Cube."
One of the Navy sailors looked between them. "You're certain?"
All four Kansen answered simultaneously. "Yes."
Enterprise moved toward the pedestal as though walking through a dream. Cyan light still lingered within tiny grooves across its surface. She placed her hand against the empty center. Warmth remained. Enterprise jerked her hand back. "It's warm."
Hornet immediately touched it too. Her face crumpled. "She's right."
Yorktown pressed both hands to the edge of the pedestal and bowed her head while tears struck the metal. "The Cube was here."
New Jersey looked around the chamber. "And now it isn't."
Belfast slowly approached Yorktown. "You believe this Cube contained Mary."
Yorktown closed her eyes. "I think it contained more than that."
Enterprise turned toward her.
Yorktown looked at the surrounding chamber and finally understood what the strange changes aboard USS Nimitz after Mary's death had meant. "The Cube became Nimitz's heart," she said. "Not the nuclear reactors, not the electrical plant, not anything the Navy installed. Those systems were still real, but underneath them something else was feeding the ship, connecting everything together."
The engineering officer stared around the room. "That would explain why nothing about the failure makes sense."
Yorktown nodded. "If the Wisdom Cube left, the ship suddenly lost the thing that had quietly become her true core."
Hornet looked frightened. "But if the Cube was Mom…"
New Jersey finished the thought. "...Then Mom left with it."
Silence filled the hidden chamber. Enterprise looked toward the empty pedestal. Her tears began falling. Two months of grief, anger, desperate acceptance, and forced healing crashed against a possibility she had never allowed herself to consider. "What did you do, Mom?" she whispered.
Yorktown approached her. Enterprise suddenly turned toward her sister. "If that Cube really held her soul, and it isn't here anymore, what does that mean?"
Yorktown swallowed. "I don't know."
Enterprise's voice rose. "Could she be alive?"
"I don't know, Enty."
"Could she have become one of us?"
Yorktown's tears fell harder. "I don't know!"
Enterprise stared at her. Yorktown took Enterprise's face gently between both hands. "But I know our Wisdom Cubes can create bodies," she said. "I know they create rigging. I know they connect us to ships that died decades before our human forms ever existed. I know they carry memories and identity in ways human science still doesn't understand."
Enterprise's eyes widened. Hornet whispered the conclusion first. "Mom could have become a ship-girl."
Nobody laughed. Nobody dismissed it. New Jersey looked toward the empty pedestal and then down at her own hands. "If a human soul somehow bonded with a Cube, and that Cube spent two months using an aircraft carrier as its heart…"
Belfast stared at her. New Jersey continued. "...Then whatever came out of this room might be something nobody has ever seen before."
Enterprise turned back toward the pedestal. A tiny blue light flickered once along its base. The ship's remaining twenty-five percent power fluctuated. For half a second, every light inside the chamber became brilliantly cyan. Then words appeared across the pedestal. They were not displayed on any screen. They formed directly within the light: CORE TRANSFER COMPLETE.
Hornet gasped. Another line appeared: VESSEL FORMATION COMPLETE.
Yorktown stopped breathing. Then the third line appeared: SOUL INTEGRATION: COMPLETE.
Enterprise's knees nearly gave out. New Jersey caught her arm. "Enty." Enterprise could barely hear her. One final line formed: NIMITZ…DEPARTED.
The chamber went dark. Enterprise stared at the empty space where the words had been. Her mouth opened. Nothing came out at first. Then she looked at Yorktown, Hornet, New Jersey, Belfast, and the Navy crew standing around them.
Her grief had changed. Fear remained. Hope remained. But something new now existed beneath both. Certainty that their mother's death had not been the end of the story.
Enterprise placed both hands against the empty pedestal. "Where is the Cube?" she whispered.
Yorktown moved beside her. Enterprise's voice trembled harder. "And if Mom was reborn through it…"
She looked at the doorway. Then upward, as though she could somehow see beyond the decks above them, beyond the task force, beyond the Gulf of Aden, and into the darkness surrounding Somalia. "Where is our mother now?"
No one aboard USS Nimitz could answer her.
But hundreds of miles away, deep inside territory controlled by Somali pirates, something impossible had already begun.
Date: Sunday, July 4th, 2021
Time: 12:31 AM
Location: Heavily Fortified Pirate Stronghold, Somalia / USS Nimitz Carrier Task Force and NATO Support Force, Gulf of Aden
The room had once been some form of underground storage chamber, but during the past week it had become a prison for men and women who had expected to spend their deployment delivering food, medicine, engineering equipment, and emergency supplies rather than waiting to discover whether their captors intended to ransom or kill them. Humanitarian workers sat against concrete walls beside military security personnel from several allied nations, their wrists no longer constantly bound because the reinforced steel door and armed guards outside had convinced the pirates that escape was impossible. Some hostages slept in exhausted clusters, others whispered quietly, and several wounded personnel rested upon improvised bedding while the military members rotated through silent watches even though none possessed weapons. They had been moved repeatedly after their capture, sometimes blindfolded and sometimes transported beneath tarps, until most had lost track of exactly where they were somewhere within Somalia. Nobody inside the chamber expected the impossible thing that appeared between them at exactly 12:31 in the morning.
A tiny point of cyan-blue light formed several feet above the concrete floor, and one of the American medical workers initially thought exhaustion had finally begun causing hallucinations until another hostage jerked upright and stared at the same thing. The light expanded into a translucent cube no larger than two hands held together, its surface covered with shifting patterns that several military personnel recognized instantly from years of working beside Azur Lane. A British Royal Marine corporal scrambled backward until his shoulders struck the wall, while an American Navy security officer stared with widening eyes and whispered the words nobody else wanted to believe. "That's a Wisdom Cube, and there is absolutely no reason one should be appearing in the middle of this room." The cyan object pulsed once in response, and every person inside the chamber fell silent.
The Wisdom Cube grew brighter until the prisoners were forced to shield their eyes, but instead of detonating or summoning one of the Kansen they recognized from Azur Lane photographs, the cube began opening like a geometric flower made entirely from light. Human legs formed first, followed by a torso, arms, shoulders, and finally the unmistakable outline of a towering woman whose body seemed to be assembled from thousands of luminous fragments. White fabric appeared over her developing form until an immaculate Admiral Full Dress White Uniform covered her from collar to polished black shoes, with rank insignia appearing as naturally as the fingers forming around the objects in both of her hands. By the time the cyan radiance began fading, a seven-foot-tall woman stood where the Wisdom Cube had been, holding a HOOK3 Combat Survival Radio in her left hand and a Heckler & Koch Mk 23 MOD 0 pistol in her right. The pistol carried a suppressor and laser aiming module, while its loaded extended detachable magazine held twenty-four rounds, yet the woman instinctively kept its muzzle pointed safely toward the concrete floor rather than toward the frightened people surrounding her.
Nobody moved. The unknown woman breathed.
Her chest rose sharply as though she had just surfaced from deep water, and her eyes opened with a violent intake of air that made several hostages recoil. She immediately shifted her stance, scanning the walls, reinforced door, hostages, ventilation openings, and every possible threat location with movements so controlled that the captured soldiers understood she knew exactly how to handle the weapon in her hand. Her thumb automatically checked the Mk 23's controls without firing it, while her other hand tightened around the HOOK3 as though she had carried one through dozens of survival exercises. "Nobody move toward the door," she ordered, and the natural command authority in her voice silenced even those preparing to speak.
A U.S. Navy lieutenant slowly raised his empty hands. "Ma'am, we're hostages, and there are armed pirates outside that door," he said, studying her uniform with growing confusion. "I don't know who you are or how you just did whatever the hell that was, but if you're with a rescue force, every person in this room is friendly." The woman turned toward him, and something in her expression softened when she realized nobody around her represented an immediate threat. "I'm not going to hurt you," she answered, looking down at the pistol in her hand as though noticing it fully for the first time. "Apparently I know exactly what this is and exactly how to use it, but I have absolutely no memory of picking it up."
The lieutenant lowered his hands slightly, although his eyes remained fixed upon her. "You appeared out of a Wisdom Cube," he told her, and the woman froze so completely that the room became silent again. "I watched it happen, ma'am, and everybody else in here watched it happen too." A French military medic sitting several feet away nodded immediately before pointing toward the faint cyan particles still dissolving around the woman's boots. "I have worked beside Iris Libre Kansen for three years, and I know Wisdom Cube manifestation when I see it, but I have never seen one produce someone wearing a modern American admiral's uniform." The woman looked down at herself and slowly touched the front of her white coat.
Her fingers stopped over the black nametag: NIMITZ.
The American lieutenant read it at the same moment. "Nimitz?"
The woman's breath caught. She looked at him. Then she looked down again. "Nimitz," she repeated, and something deep inside her reacted to the name. The final remnant of the Wisdom Cube appeared again before her.
A miniature cyan cube floated between her and the hostages, no larger than her palm now, its brilliant light reflecting from the white uniform covering her towering frame. Mary stared at it without understanding why tears suddenly filled her eyes, but the moment she reached forward and wrapped her fingers around it, the Cube dissolved into pure light. Cyan energy traveled across her hand, up her arm, and directly into her chest before disappearing beneath the uniform. Mary staggered backward one step as an entire second existence opened inside her.
She understood Kansen. She understood rigging even though she had never possessed it before. She understood the impossible relationship between woman, vessel, memory, soul, and Wisdom Cube because the knowledge existed inside her as naturally as knowing how to breathe. And then she remembered dying.
Mary's eyes widened as memories struck her in overwhelming waves, beginning with Enterprise holding her hand and Yorktown crying beside the bed before Hornet's broken voice, New Jersey's desperate anger, Belfast's tears, and countless daughters crowded into the private medical compartment crashed through her mind. She remembered telling them she loved them, remembered her body becoming unbearably heavy, and remembered looking toward Enterprise as the world slowly faded around her. She remembered saying the last words her human lungs had ever spoken while surrounded by the women she had spent years calling her daughters. "My girls," Mary whispered, and both hands began trembling.
The hostages watched tears run down the towering admiral's face before something unexpected happened. Mary started laughing.
It was not madness or cruelty, and the military prisoners recognized that almost immediately because the laughter came through tears and disbelief rather than instability. Mary pressed one hand against her chest while the other still held the HOOK3, her shoulders shaking as two months of impossible existence suddenly made sense inside her mind. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," she gasped between emotional laughs, looking upward as though the universe itself had played the most extraordinary joke imaginable. "I died, my soul somehow became one with the Wisdom Cube hidden inside USS Nimitz, and now I have somehow become a Kansen."
The American lieutenant stared at her. "USS Nimitz had a Wisdom Cube?"
Mary laughed again and wiped tears from beneath one eye. "Apparently she had one where nobody knew to look, because I remember being inside it without actually being awake." She pressed her palm over her heart and closed her eyes as fragments of those two months passed through her awareness. "It was in the heart of the carrier, deep around engineering, and somehow my soul joined with it after I died." Her laughter softened into an overwhelmed smile when the meaning became unavoidable. "My daughters are going to lose their minds."
The French medic stared toward Mary's uniform. "Your daughters?"
Mary looked at him. "Azur Lane."
Several hostages went completely still.
The British Royal Marine who had recognized the Cube first slowly rose onto one knee. "Wait a bloody second," he said, staring at Mary's face with dawning recognition. "Mary Elizabeth Nimitz?" Mary's eyebrows lifted. "Yes." The Marine looked as though someone had struck him. "Mother Nimitz?"
Mary's expression broke into another tearful smile. "I suppose that would be me."
More prisoners recognized the name almost immediately, because news of Mary Elizabeth Nimitz's death had traveled through military organizations connected to Azur Lane two months earlier. Some had seen memorial photographs, others knew stories from Kansen personnel who openly referred to her as Mother, and several military hostages remembered the grief that had spread throughout allied bases after the announcement. Yet the woman standing before them was seven feet tall, physically transformed, dressed as an admiral, and had literally emerged from a Wisdom Cube in the middle of a pirate prison. The American lieutenant stared at her for several stunned seconds before emotion replaced disbelief. "Ma'am, according to every report I've seen, you died on May third."
Mary gave him a helpless look. "I noticed."
A few hostages laughed for the first time in seven days. Mary looked down at the HOOK3 in her left hand. Knowledge appeared immediately. She knew every control. She knew its emergency functions.
She knew exactly what the emergency activation would tell any compatible allied receiver listening for it. Her expression changed. "Oh, my girls are about to have a much better night."
Mary shifted the Mk 23 safely into one hand, raised the HOOK3, and pressed the emergency activation. The unit responded immediately.
An emergency survival transmission burst outward from inside the fortified compound, carrying its encrypted identity, distress status, and precise position into the night;NIGHTWITCH 1-1…HOOK3 ESAT ACTIVE…EMERGENCY BEACON TRANSMITTING.
Time: 12:38 AM
Location: USS Nimitz Carrier Task Force, Gulf of Aden
The first indication appeared aboard USS Princeton.
A watchstander monitoring emergency frequencies leaned toward his display when a survival beacon suddenly populated the tactical system with an identification code that should not have existed anymore. He checked the return twice before calling his supervisor, who stared at the same display with an expression moving from confusion to disbelief. Seconds later USS Philippine Sea received the same transmission, followed almost immediately by USS Sterett, USS John Paul Jones, and USS Ralph Johnson. USNS Yukon picked up the emergency signal as well, although its operators initially assumed someone had accidentally activated stored survival equipment until they read the identifier attached to it.
Then USS Nimitz received the signal.
The carrier's damaged systems were still functioning at only approximately twenty-five percent power when an operator inside her Combat Direction Center suddenly shouted loud enough to silence half the compartment. "I have an emergency survival beacon!" she called, leaning toward the restored portion of her console while additional personnel moved around her. "HOOK3 ESAT, authenticated identification attached, signal is strong enough for position resolution." The officer behind her stepped closer. "Whose beacon?" The operator stared at the identification field before slowly turning in her seat. "Nightwitch One-One."
Nobody spoke. The officer's face lost its color. "Repeat that."
The operator swallowed. "Nightwitch One-One."
Enterprise, Yorktown, Hornet, New Jersey, and Belfast were still inside the impossible Wisdom Cube chamber when a sailor appeared in the doorway and nearly stumbled over his own words trying to deliver the message. "Enterprise, ma'am, Combat has an emergency beacon that you need to see immediately," he said, his own expression making it obvious that this was not an ordinary report. Enterprise turned so sharply that New Jersey instinctively reached toward her. "Whose?" The sailor hesitated only a heartbeat. "Nightwitch One-One."
Enterprise ran.
Yorktown, Hornet, New Jersey, and Belfast followed her through the carrier's partially powered passageways, while crewmen moved aside when they saw the Kansen rushing toward Combat. Enterprise's heart hammered hard enough to hurt because Nightwitch had been Mary's callsign, and the numerical identifier attached to the HOOK3 had belonged specifically to equipment assigned to Mary. Nobody aboard Nimitz would use that callsign accidentally, and nobody outside trusted networks should have possessed an authenticated beacon capable of identifying itself that way. When Enterprise finally entered the combat center, she ignored everyone except the bright marker visible upon the restored tactical display.
NIGHTWITCH 1-1…HOOK3 ESAT…EMERGENCY.
Hornet stopped beside her. Yorktown covered her mouth. New Jersey whispered, "Holy shit."
Belfast began crying before anyone spoke another word.
Enterprise approached the console with both hands trembling. "Are you sure this isn't an old stored identifier or equipment somebody found?" she demanded, staring at the symbol as though looking away might make it disappear. The watch officer shook his head immediately. "The authentication is current, the beacon is live, and it began transmitting less than two minutes ago." He touched another control and displayed the resolved location. "We also have a position."
Enterprise looked. Every person around her became still. The beacon was originating from Somalia. Deep inland. Inside an area intelligence agencies had spent months associating with the largest pirate network operating along that section of the coast.
Before anyone could fully react, another voice came from across the combat center. "Additional ships receiving the beacon, Captain, and we have a multinational force entering support range."
The main display expanded.
Another naval formation was approaching from the northeast, having accelerated toward the American task force after learning USS Nimitz had suffered a major power casualty. The force included ships from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Canada, every participating nation a NATO member and every vessel already coordinating through the wider maritime-security operation. Royal Navy, Marine nationale, Deutsche Marine, Marina Militare, Royal Netherlands Navy, and Royal Canadian Navy identifiers populated the tactical picture as the two formations established shared communications. Their arrival would have been important under ordinary circumstances.
What mattered more to Enterprise was who was aboard them. More of Mary's daughters.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales were with the British contingent, having demanded to accompany the force after learning something had happened to Nimitz. Richelieu and Jean Bart were traveling with the French ships, Bismarck and Tirpitz with the German contingent, and Vittorio Veneto and Littorio with the Italians, while other Azur Lane girls were distributed throughout the combined force. They had expected to find a damaged carrier and grieving sisters dealing with another unexplained disaster. Instead, their combat systems began displaying the same impossible emergency signal.
Queen Elizabeth's voice struck the shared circuit first. "Enterprise, tell me that identifier means what I think it means."
Enterprise closed her eyes. "I don't know yet."
Bismarck came across next, and her usually controlled voice trembled. "Nightwitch was Mutter's callsign."
"I know."
Richelieu's breathing could be heard faintly over the circuit before she spoke. "And the beacon is authenticated?"
The watch officer answered for Enterprise. "Affirmative. Nightwitch One-One is transmitting live from inland Somalia."
Silence followed. Then Hornet moved beside Enterprise and looked at the HOOK3 communications options appearing on the console. "Can we send a text to it?"
The operator nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
Enterprise stared at the marker. Somewhere beneath the fear, Yorktown's words returned to her. Mom could have become a ship-girl. The empty pedestal returned to her memory. NIMITZ…DEPARTED.
Enterprise reached toward the communications station. "I want to send one message."
Belfast looked at her. "What are you going to say?"
Enterprise's eyes filled with tears. "Nothing complicated."
The communications operator opened the text channel associated with the HOOK3. Enterprise dictated slowly. "Just talk. We are waiting for the voice."
The message transmitted.
Time: 12:44 AM
Location: Hostage Chamber, Pirate Stronghold
Mary's HOOK3 vibrated in her hand. She looked down. A short text message appeared; JUST TALK. WE ARE WAITING FOR THE VOICE.
Mary stopped breathing. The hostages watched her expression collapse. Her fingers tightened around the radio. "Enterprise," she whispered.
The American lieutenant looked toward her. "You know who sent that?"
Mary laughed once through a sob. "I know exactly who sent it."
She raised the HOOK3 to her mouth, but for several seconds she could not make herself press the transmit control because the reality suddenly became overwhelming. Her daughters had buried her. They had grieved her for two months. Somewhere across the water Enterprise, Yorktown, Hornet, New Jersey, Belfast, and perhaps dozens more were waiting to discover whether the impossible signal actually belonged to the woman they had watched die. Mary finally pressed transmit. "This is Nightwitch One-One."
Aboard USS Nimitz, Enterprise crumpled.
Yorktown caught her from one side while Hornet grabbed her from the other, because there was no mistaking the voice coming through the speakers. New Jersey's hands flew over her mouth and Belfast released a sound halfway between a sob and Mary's name. Across the shared NATO circuit, the same reaction spread through the other daughters as Queen Elizabeth began openly crying, Bismarck's controlled breathing disappeared into a broken gasp, and Richelieu whispered a prayer beneath her breath. Enterprise stared at the speaker as though Mary might physically emerge from it.
The HOOK3 transmitted again. "Enty?" And Enterprise broke. "Mom!"
Her cry went through every active circuit before anyone could control the routing, reaching American ships, allied NATO vessels, command spaces, and every daughter listening across the combined force. Enterprise gripped the edge of the console while tears poured down her face. "Mom, oh God, Mom, it's me! I'm here, I'm right here!" Yorktown buried her face against Enterprise's shoulder while Hornet openly sobbed beside them. "Mom, please tell me that's really you!"
Mary heard them. Her daughters. Alive. Waiting. Mary lowered her head and cried in front of dozens of hostages who had known her for less than fifteen minutes. "It's me," she answered, barely keeping her voice together. "Enterprise, Yorktown, Hornet, honey, Bells, it's me." She laughed through the tears before wiping her cheek against her shoulder because both hands were occupied. "I remember everything, girls. I remember the hospital room, I remember holding you, and I remember dying."
New Jersey forced herself close enough to the microphone. "Mom, you called me honey."
Mary immediately laughed. "Of course I did, honey."
New Jersey collapsed into Belfast. The battleship cried so hard that Belfast had to hold her upright, even though the Royal Maid was barely functioning herself. "You came back," New Jersey sobbed. "You actually came back." Mary pressed the HOOK3 tightly against her face for one moment before answering. "Apparently I am extremely bad at staying dead."
Hornet produced a wet laugh. "That is the best terrible joke you've ever made."
Mary smiled. Then her military instincts returned. She looked around the room. "Girls, I need to figure out where I am and exactly who is with me."
Enterprise wiped her face and struggled to regain command focus. "Your beacon has your position, Mom, but we need confirmation about the compound." She looked toward the tactical display. "You're inside territory connected to the pirate organization we've been hunting."
Mary's expression hardened. She turned toward the American lieutenant. "I need the senior military security person in this room."
The lieutenant straightened. "That would be me, ma'am, Lieutenant Commander Daniel Mercer, United States Navy. We also have Royal Marines, French naval security, Italian personnel, German security troops, and several others who were assigned to the humanitarian convoy."
Mary looked around at the room. "How many hostages?"
Mercer exchanged a stunned look with another officer before answering. "All of them."
Mary frowned. "All of who?"
"Every person missing from the humanitarian operation last week."
The room aboard Nimitz became silent. Mary stared at him. Mercer continued. "The aid workers, medical personnel, logistics teams, civilian contractors, drivers who survived the ambush, and every captured member of the military security detail were moved here over several days." His jaw tightened as he glanced toward the reinforced door. "We originally thought they had split us between multiple camps, but they consolidated everyone here after the last group arrived yesterday."
Enterprise looked toward the tactical officer. "How many people were listed as missing?"
The answer came quietly. "All accounted for if he's right."
Mary's eyes narrowed. "Lieutenant Commander, do you know where this facility is?"
Mercer nodded slowly. "Yes, ma'am."
Everyone looked at him. He continued. "They blindfolded us during most transfers, but not consistently enough. Some of us caught terrain features, road directions, communications traffic, and portions of the compound when they brought the final group inside." He looked toward several allied military hostages, who nodded in agreement. "We spent the last three days comparing everything we knew."
Mary waited. Mercer's next words changed the situation completely. "This isn't one of their holding camps."
Enterprise leaned toward the radio. "What is it?"
Mercer looked directly at Mary. "This is the main stronghold."
The room went silent. Mary's eyebrows rose. "The main stronghold?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Mercer moved closer, keeping his voice low even though the heavy door remained closed. "Central command, weapons storage, leadership quarters, communications, vehicle compounds, holding areas, and their primary coordination point for operations along this section of the Somali coast." He pointed downward. "We're in the middle of it."
Mary slowly looked around. Then down at the HOOK3. Then at the suppressed Mk 23 in her hand. Her expression became almost incredulous. "You're telling me I died, became a Wisdom Cube, turned into a Kansen, disappeared out of an aircraft carrier, and materialized inside the exact pirate fortress everybody has been trying to find?"
Mercer gave her a tired smile. "Yes, ma'am."
Mary stared at him. "Well, that's convenient."
Enterprise actually laughed.
The sound spread through the command center aboard Nimitz before Hornet joined her, then Yorktown, then New Jersey, the emotional pressure becoming so extreme that laughter and tears simply blended together. Across the NATO circuit, several more of Mary's daughters reacted the same way as they finally allowed themselves to believe the voice was truly hers. Queen Elizabeth could be heard declaring that Mother had somehow managed to turn resurrection into a military intelligence operation. Even Bismarck released a short, disbelieving laugh.
Then the tactical implications settled in. The main pirate stronghold had not merely been located. They had an authenticated beacon transmitting from inside it. Every missing hostage was apparently concentrated there. And Mary Elizabeth Nimitz…the mother of Azur Lane, newly reborn Kansen, and owner of one spectacularly inconvenient talent for appearing at the center of disasters…was standing among them.
Enterprise looked toward the multinational tactical display. American and NATO ships now shared the same location. The entire combined force knew where the stronghold was. Belfast moved beside Enterprise and activated the microphone herself. "Mary."
Mary smiled when she heard her. "Yes, Bells?"
Belfast closed her eyes at the nickname. "I desperately want to spend the next hour crying, shouting at you for dying, hugging you, making you tea, and confirming approximately a thousand impossible things about what you have become." Her voice cracked before she forced herself onward. "But since you have apparently returned to us inside the headquarters of the people responsible for kidnapping an entire humanitarian mission, may I respectfully suggest we retrieve you first?"
Mary laughed softly. "I would appreciate that."
Enterprise placed one hand over Belfast's. "We're coming for you, Mom."
Mary's expression softened. "I know you are."
Enterprise stared toward Mary's beacon. "Don't disappear again."
Mary's eyes filled with tears. "I'll do everything I can not to, sweetheart."
Yorktown moved close enough for her voice to reach the radio. "Mom, Nimitz went dark when your Cube left."
Mary's smile disappeared. "What?"
Yorktown swallowed. "The hidden Cube was acting like her heart. When you manifested somewhere else, the carrier lost most of her power." She wiped her cheek before continuing. "We found the chamber, Mom. We found where you were."
Mary slowly placed her hand against her own chest. She could suddenly feel something. Not through ears. Not through ordinary senses. USS Nimitz.
Far away. Weak. Wounded. Waiting. Mary's expression changed. "Oh," she whispered.
Enterprise heard it. "What is it?"
Mary closed her eyes. "I can feel her."
Yorktown's breath caught. Mary pressed her palm harder against her chest as the connection strengthened. "She isn't just the ship I was aboard anymore."
Cyan light briefly appeared beneath Mary's fingers. The hostages stared. Mary opened her eyes. "She is mine."
Every Kansen listening understood exactly what those words meant. Mary Elizabeth Nimitz had not merely been resurrected by a Wisdom Cube. She had become USS Nimitz. And somewhere within her newly awakened soul existed the ship-form of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier currently struggling along at twenty-five percent power hundreds of miles away.
Enterprise wiped fresh tears from her face. "Then we're bringing Nimitz's heart home."
Mary looked around at the captured humanitarian workers and military guards. "No."
Enterprise froze. Mary's expression became commanding. "You're bringing all of us home."
She looked at every hostage around her. "All of us."
Mercer straightened. The humanitarian workers slowly stood. The military guards looked toward one another with hope entering exhausted faces for the first time in a week. Aboard USS Nimitz, Enterprise nodded. "All of you."
The combined American and NATO formations began moving. And for the first time since May 3rd, the daughters of Azur Lane were no longer preparing to mourn their mother. They were preparing to bring her home.