Maple Botes 5

Canadian Ship Girls 5

		Ontario rubbed her eyes as she typed out the latest in a series of email’s that she’d needed to compose over the last several days. It seemed like she’d spent nearly every spare hour out of the last 72 sending an email, working on plans or attempting to figure out a way to make sure that Bismarck wouldn’t simply demand that her girls be returned to England without giving Ontario a fair shot at convincing her. So far she was pretty sure what she had would work, but nothing was certain and she still had two more days to work on it.

	Thankfully Admiral Norman had agreed with her initial proposal and thrown in his support, meaning that she only had to develop the proposal into a full blown plan of action instead of trying to convince everybody it was a good idea. Coordinating between the RCN, RCAF and the Army was still a pain, which was why she had so many emails to send. Thankfully most of it wasn’t that complicated, just a matter of timing between the three services and the city, which needed to be informed about such intensive military activities.

	Firing off what was hopefully the last important email to the base commander, the local squadron commander for the RCAF and the commander of the Army shore batteries, Ontario leaned back in her chair with a sigh, hoping that she might be able to catch a few moments of rest before the next big thing came up.

	Life seemed to have a sense of humor like always though and at that moment New Glasgow burst into the room.

	“Sub Lieutenant come quick!” she said, her voice excited but not alarmed, “You need to see this!”

	“What is it Glasgow?” she said, forcing herself upright and alert once more.

	“They’ve found a girl, a new one!” said New Glasgow, “On the end of one of the piers. She might be a destroyer.”

	Ontario’s eyes widened, another full surface combatant would be a godsend for the RCN, especially if she was a shipgirl.

	“Lead the way,” she told New Glasgow as she grabbed her cap and followed her out of the door.

	It took only a few minutes for the two of them to make it to where the girl had been found, but there seemed to be a commotion going on as they closed. Ontario looked at New Glasgow, the girl shaking her head at the cruiser and the two of them brok into a jog as more and more could be heard.

	“Let me at em, let me at em!” came a voice Ontario hadn’t heard before, “The dirty fucking huns aren’t getting away from me this time!”

	Various cries of no and some whines proved that whatever was going on, several of the Rivers and Flowers were holding the other girl down or preventing her from whatever she was attempting to do.

	Finally making it to where she could both see and be seen, Ontario found one of the German sub girls crouched down behind the big furry bulk of one of the corvettes, with another corvette and three of the River girls perched upon her chest, legs and arm respectively, the other arm flailing uselessly.

	“I said get off of me!” came the cry from the girl once more, the 4.7 inch gun held in her pinned hand marking her as another Tribal class, even as she attempted and failed to point it at the hiding German girl.

	“Officer on deck!” cried New Glasgow, a remarkably powerful sound from her small body, causing the entire scene to freeze at least for the moment.

	Ontario stepped forwards like the officer she was, her eyes glancing over the scene once more. The German girl had stood from her crouch now, the younger girls were perched on the newcomer and the newcomer had ceased her struggles for the moment at least.

	“What’s going on here?” said Ontario, keeping her voice cool and level despite her inclination to immediately side with the girls she knew.

	There was an immediate babble from the Canadian girls, with “Meanie”, “Kraut Lovers” and “Fuck” being the clearest words.

	“Quiet!” declared Ontario and turned to the German girl, the only one who hadn’t immediately begun speaking.

	She finally got a good look at her and recognized her as 407, one of the girls who had only arrived recently.

	“Could you tell me what happened please 407?” she asked the girl, who looked a little bit nervous, but managed to stand up straight and compose herself after Ontario gave her a small nod.

	“We were walking along the waterfront,” started 407, “when we found her,” she pointed at the struggling destroyer girl. She currently had her mouth covered by one giant paw, as she apparently had tried to continue talking despite Ontario’s warning.

	“At first she didn’t wake up and we sent New Glasgow to find you,” she continued, “but we kept trying to wake her up. When she finally did she was disoriented like normal, but then she saw me and pulled out her weapon, which was when they jumped on her.”

	“Thank you,” said Ontario, giving the girl a nod before turning to the still piled on girl.

	Standing next to her head, Ontario looked down as seriously as she could and then spoke.

	“I want your name and number, nothing more, ok?” she said to the girl, who finally nodded.

	Ontario turned to the corvette and nodded the large dog woofing before removing its paw from her face.

	“HMCS Micmac, R10,” said the girl. Her face was puffed up and she clearly wanted to say more, but she managed to keep quiet. Barely.

	“Well Micmac,” said Ontario, “I’m HMCS Ontario, as well as being Sub-Lieutenant Ontario. I’m in command of all the ship girls on this base. There’s a lot that we need to brief you on, but before I tell them to let you up, I want your word that you will take no offensive actions against anyone on this base, understood?”

	Micmac seemed on the edge of being defiant, but pinned down as she was there wasn’t any way for her to back it up.

	“Fine…” she said, pouting.

	“Let her up,” she said to the three River girls and the Flower, all of whom got up and then ran to surround 407 protectively.

	Micmac let them go, slowly sitting upright and looking at the five Canadian ships protecting the single U-boat girl.

	“How come we’re so friendly with the Krauts now?” she said quietly, almost under her breath.

	“The Germans are our allies now,” said Ontario, offering a hand to Micmac, who took it reluctantly, “So I don’t want to hear you call them anything else or I’ll let Haida have her way with you.”

	Micmac pulled herself up, but stopped when she heard Haida’s name. “Haida’s already here?” she said, her eyes wide.

	“Yes she is,” said Ontario as she turned to head down the pier, “She’s also in charge of discipline.”

	There was silence from behind her for a few more seconds until she heard the patter of feet and then Ontario suddenly found herself spun around by Micmac.

	“OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HAIDA IS HERE!” said Micmac, “SHE’S SO COOL AND AWESOME AND SHE BLEW UP ALL THE THINGS AND CAN I MEET HER CAN I CAN I!?!?!?!?!”

Ontario took a few seconds to comprehend just how excited the other destroyer girl was at the prospect of meeting Haida before she even began to formulate a response. On one hand she’d been a pain since she’d met her and wanted to shoot the German girls. On the other hand she’d been back for what might have been all of a half hour or so and was still getting her people legs under her. So Ontario decided to cut her a little bit of slack. Only a little though.

	“You know what?” said Ontario to Micmac, “I think that Haida is the first person we should go meet.”

	“YES!!!!” said Micmac, punching in the air with her fist as she leaped into the air with a spin, “THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME~~!!!”

	Ontario turned back around to cover the smile that threatened to break out on her face as she brought her finger up to her ear and began to radio Haida.

	“Haida?” she said over the air as Micmac skipped along behind her singing about meeting Haida.

	“Hold on hold on time out!” she heard Haida say over the radio before she responded, “What can I do for you Sub-Lieutenant?”

	“We’ve just had a new returnee show up,” she said, “Tribal class.”

	“Oooh, which one?” asked Haida.

	“Micmac,” she said, “She’s a… fan, of yours.”

	“Define “fan”,” said Haida, the chiefs voice suddenly becoming more wary.

	Ontario simply turned her ear a bit towards Micmac, who was still going on about how “Totally awesome” Haida was and how “She wanted to be just like her” along with some sing-song and other random tidbits before she got back to Haida.

	“Did you hear that?” Ontario said to Haida.

	“I did,” said Haida in a voice that clearly indicated her utter loathing of what had just been unleashed.

	“Seeing as how she’s your fan and our most recent returnee, I’m giving her to you for the rest of the day,” said Ontario.

	She could almost hear the teeth grinding on the other side of the radio connection before Haida spoke again several seconds later.

	“Why in the Queens good name would you do that Ma’am?” asked Haida.

	“Good question Chief,” said Ontario, her voice dropping what bit of levity it had held before, “The answer being that I have two German heavy cruisers and one possibly irate German battleship showing up tomorrow. I want Micmac to be with us and of sufficient mind to play her part properly.”

	Being the good chief she was Haida immediately saw where Ontario was going.
	“Three for three?” she said.

	“Yes,” said Ontario, “Even if one of the heavy cruisers will mass the same as the three of us.”

	“You want her to be ready by tomorrow?” asked Haida.

	“Yes,” said Ontario, “I should also let you know that her first reaction was to shoot at one of the U-boat girls.”

	“Great,” said Haida, “Rules of engagement?”

	“Do what you need to do Chief, do what you need to do.”

	There was silence on the other end of the line and then two clicks of acknowledgement before the line went dead.

	Ontario decided that she’d let the small smile that was building play upon her lips. It wasn’t every day that a Chief got to unleash everything in their arsenal upon a poor sailor with her CO’s explicit approval. She certainly wouldn’t want to be in Micmac’s position, but that was one of the perks of command.