Ulyanovsk’s return to his home base was slightly soured by the absolute chaos reigning at HQ.
Sweaty, frantic officers sprinted down the halls, either chasing or fleeing from inspectors of varying ranks, much to the amusement of the enlisted grunts.
Surprisingly, Admiral Volkov was still holding onto his position as base commander.
However, he looked incredibly depressed.
After half-listening to the aviation cruiser’s deployment debrief, he silently waved him off to the logistics and supply depot.
Ulyanovsk quickly synced up with the major in charge of supply—whose domain, by some bizarre miracle, hadn’t been terrorized by the inspectors yet—and finalized a grocery list.
Then, he headed home.
He rode in the back of a standard-issue military UAZ, accompanied by a few swabbies assigned to him as manual labor to haul some packages from Fleet HQ.
The boots were more than eager to spill all the latest base gossip along the way.
And the gossip was juicy.
Ulyanovsk heavily suspected that his handler had orchestrated this entire inspection just to oust Volkov from his seat.
Just firing him outright was impossible, even with Naval Intel’s pull, since the current commander had highly influential relatives.
Literally everyone on the base knew that fact, right down to the stray dogs fed by the mess hall cooks.
So Mikheev sent his bloodhounds to dig up heavier ammunition.
And apparently, they struck gold.
According to a swabbie who had been pulling desk duty that day, they dug up something massive.
The sheer speed at which certain ‘Suits’ from Moscow arrived—wearing huge stars on their epaulets hidden beneath tailored jackets—made the entire base tremble.
The house greeted him with a welcoming silence, broken only by the quiet humming of a robot vacuum cleaner.
Out of sheer habit, Ulyanovsk unleashed his fairies to sweep for any bugs or ‘surprises’ left behind by the Spooks.
Satisfied the area was clean, he dragged the crates into his workshop.
“They could have just pinned one of our supposedly ‘failed’ operations on him.
Claimed it was an intelligence failure, since our base is responsible for recon,” he sighed quietly, shrugging off his tunic.
“The only upside is that nobody’s going to be breathing down my neck with snarky comments during live-fire drills.” According to the aviation cruiser’s immediate superiors, the newly arrived inspection personnel had been thoroughly briefed.
Some, due to their specific ‘black ops’ professions, were already perfectly aware of the existence of the most highly classified Kanmusu in the fleet.
Therefore, he had absolutely zero chance of sitting comfortably on the shore until the investigation concluded or the Combined Fleet’s massive joint operation kicked off.
All he could do now was wait for intel.
Ulyanovsk considered it premature to build his air group loadout before the mission details were finalized.
For reconnaissance, he already had a time-tested deck configuration.
He could reinforce it with his recent stealth upgrades, but he didn’t have enough of the new Su-57 models printed yet.
Thus, the aviation cruiser’s plan for the evening—and the next few days—was strictly focused on replenishing his ammo pool.
While he was at it, he could finally check what HQ had sent him that made the quartermaster glare at the crates with absolute, burning hatred.
“Perfect,” the guy nodded, listening to the sitrep from the Marine sprite that materialized on his shoulder.
“Good job.
I just hope they pulled the surveillance team because it was useless, and not because some submarine decided to drop by unannounced.” The fairy’s news significantly boosted the aviation cruiser’s mood.
He decided to cook dinner himself instead of bothering his head chef sprite.
But first, he had to inspect the care package.
The quartermaster’s utter frustration quickly became obvious.
The crates were secured with specialized locks that could only be opened by a Kanmusu utilizing sprites from an organic repair party.
This fact heavily pointed to the involvement of a certain repair ship with a very eccentric, and somewhat nasty, personality.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” the aviation cruiser blurted out in genuine surprise, looking over the neatly packed model airplane boxes.
It wasn’t the sheer quantity of new tech—already successfully field-tested in the Arctic Ocean—that shocked him.
Having more heavy fighters and attack helicopters on deck was always a plus.
The only minor disappointment was the total lack of ASW helicopters newer than his aging Ka-27s.
He was starting to lose hope of ever seeing an upgrade for those.
No, the absolute crown jewel of the package was a set of twelve Su-33 models.
They were carefully tied together with a red ribbon, complete with a heart-shaped greeting card attached.
And every single jet featured three hardpoints specifically modified for the deadly Oniks anti-ship missiles.
Ulyanovsk immediately recalled Mikheev’s words about HQ wargaming a scenario to actively sabotage the Combined Fleet’s upcoming joint operation.
In that context, receiving missiles that were head and shoulders above his standard Moskit payload—both in specs and in the sheer number each fighter could carry—felt incredibly grim.
The cruiser fully understood and shared his Command’s reluctance to expose their flanks by sending Kanmusu into an absolute slaughterhouse.
Yet, he also knew that regardless of what the Brass decided, he was in for a long, grueling fight.
Either he had to rapidly annihilate a massive allied carrier strike group—an insanely difficult task on its own—or brace for an inevitable ‘courtesy visit’ from an enraged Abyssal Fleet.
“Yeah,” Ulyanovsk sighed.
“I just hope the diplomats have enough leverage to talk our ‘partners’ out of this monumental screw-up.
Or at least reroute them through less populated waters.” Laying out the materials needed to refresh his air wing on the workbench, the guy changed into his civilian clothes and headed for the kitchen.
There, he was greeted by his massive black tomcat.
Driven by some supernatural sixth sense, the furball had realized his owner was back and promptly broke out of the medical bay, where the cruiser had stashed him during his deployment.
The second he saw the guy, Kubik smacked his empty bowl a few times with his paw and let out a nasty yowl, making it perfectly clear that arguing was futile.
Ulyanovsk just smiled and shook his head at his overly intelligent pet.
Minutes later, the menace actually managed to swipe a chunk of meat right out of a sizzling frying pan.
Not that the guy tried too hard to stop him.
The cat looked like he had been dragged through hell, high water, and all seven circles of purgatory during his stay in the med bay.
Even for a cat, Kubik had a notoriously awful personality.
However, the head nurse of the medical bay supposedly had the experience of taming over forty felines, making her a literal boss fight for the arrogant tomcat.
“Just so you know, we’re out of milk,” he warned the four-legged thief as it snagged a second piece of meat.
Unfortunately, the aviation cruiser wasn’t destined to enjoy a peaceful meal.
Ulyanovsk would have ignored the faint creak coming from the second floor if his pet hadn’t instantly perked his ears up.
The moment the cat abandoned his freshly stolen meat to go investigate, the cruiser followed right behind him.
Reaching the door of one of the empty bedrooms—the source of the suspicious noise—the four-legged ball of darkness looked back.
He stared up at the guy with his yellow eyes in a silent, demanding glare.
Obeying the orders of his furry overlord, Ulyanovsk quietly pushed the door open, letting the brave furball inside.
He wasn’t worried about the cat’s safety.
The bizarre animal was tough enough to tie down a Kanmusu in close-quarters combat and survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Sometimes, Ulyanovsk genuinely considered handing the pet over to the science boys for a genetic workup.
But the beast seemingly sensed his owner’s mood, quickly curling up at his feet and purring loudly until the guy lost the heart to do it.
The furry scout cautiously approached the wardrobe.
A faint light spilled from its slightly ajar doors.
Staying in the shadows, the cat took a sniff, instantly arched his back, and stared at the glowing crack in sheer terror.
Hissing softly, he began backing away sideways.
That was all Ulyanovsk needed to see.
Closing the distance from the door to the wardrobe in two long strides, he braced himself.
If something managed to terrify an animal that casually pulled meat out of boiling oil and attacked Shipgirls, it was definitely hostile.
He violently thrust his hand into the crack between the doors, immediately grabbing something warm and soft.
A sharp squeak echoed from the other side.
Adjusting his grip to snag a handful of fabric, Ulyanovsk yanked hard.
A loud thud echoed as the wardrobe doors flew wide open.
A body tumbled into the room, silhouetted by the light spilling from the other dimension, followed by a shower of highly provocative scraps of fabric drifting to the floor.
With a soft click, the half-drawn combat dirk slid back into Ulyanovsk’s sheath.
The aviation cruiser’s optics could ID targets in pitch blackness, and he instantly recognized the terrified face framed by a messy platinum-blonde bob.
Effortlessly correcting her trajectory, the guy set a deeply bewildered Sirius on her feet, steadying her by the strap of her tiny crop top.
“Long time no see,” Ulyanovsk greeted, letting her go.
Sirius just blinked at him in total silence, desperately trying to process where she had just landed.
Meanwhile, Kubik—realizing his cover was blown—hissed openly and aggressively crab-walked toward the bedroom exit.
“U-Ulyanovsk?” Sirius raised her head, finally snapping out of her stupor.
“But how…” Her eyes darted frantically in a loop: from the cat, to the guy, to the scandalous laundry scattered across the floor, and finally to the glowing wardrobe.
“I was just about to ask you that,” he said, flipping the light switch.
“How did you open my wardrobe?” “I didn’t do anything,” the girl whispered.
“Except…
hang my uniform on a hanger.” Crossing her arms under her chest, she stared thoughtfully at the maid outfit crumpled on the floor.
Ulyanovsk immediately regretted turning on the lights.
Her tiny athletic shorts and beige crop top accentuated all of her curves so perfectly that staring at her felt criminally indecent.
Yet, the aviation cruiser couldn’t find the willpower to look away.
“Maybe I pushed the hanger too hard against the back wall,” Sirius voiced her theory aloud.
“And then, for a split second, I sensed that someone was about to commit a horrific atrocity against food.” In the blink of an eye, she closed the distance, standing right in front of Ulyanovsk.
She stared into his eyes with an uncharacteristically dead-serious expression.
“You weren’t planning to consume combat rations, were you?” The distinct crash of falling metal and a shattered plate echoed from the kitchen.
“Furry little bastard,” Ulyanovsk sighed.
He looked down at the girl.
Despite being significantly shorter and wearing practically nothing, she somehow managed to look incredibly intimidating.
“I wasn’t planning to.
But now, it looks like I’ll have to.” “You absolutely must not!” Sirius gasped.
“I mean, I can just skip it until tomorrow,” the guy winced at her volume.
“It’s not the end of the world.” “You cannot neglect a proper meal,” Sirius scolded, taking a step back and wagging a finger at him.
“Missing one dinner won’t kill me,” the aviation cruiser waved her off.
“My reactor can handle it.” “Still, is there anything I can do to help?” the girl asked hesitantly.
“With the cooking?” Ulyanovsk snorted.
“Need I remind you how your last culinary adventure ended?” “That’s not what I meant…” the Kansen mumbled, dropping her gaze as her fiery determination completely evaporated.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass,” the guy shook his head, shooting a vicious hiss at the smug, furry face peeking around the doorframe.
“Don’t sweat it.
Especially since that,” he pointed at the wardrobe, “is still a highly unstable anomaly.” However, Sirius had apparently reached her own conclusions.
Her spirits instantly soared, completely brushing off the jab about her cooking skills.
A spark ignited in her eyes.
“Our dining hall is open!” she announced victoriously, clapping her hands and practically bouncing on her heels.
“Lunch is over, but the Manjuu definitely have something hot left over.” “Which part of ‘unstable anomaly’ did you fail to understand?” Ulyanovsk tried to reel her in.
“But, if we don’t close the doors, the portal won’t close, right?” Sirius pointed out.
“It stayed open last time, and Lady Formidable confirmed it…” The mention of his supposed ‘classmate’ triggered a sudden fit of awkward coughing from Ulyanovsk.
The repair gel had acted a little too strongly on the Kansen carrier, and he had absolutely no desire to repeat that bizarre experiment unless critically necessary.
“…We could even prop the doors open with something, just to be safe,” the girl babbled on, crouching down to hastily gather her scattered laundry.
“What’s in it for you?” “You,” she hesitated, clutching an impressive pile of multi-colored, lacy undergarments to her chest, “took care of me when you didn’t have to.
This way, I can at least partially repay my debt.” Looking past the girl into the room on the other side, a thought struck Ulyanovsk.
He should accept the offer, if only to test Shinano’s theory.
If he truly was the catalyst for the portals and could only open them by visualizing the destination, Sirius was unknowingly volunteering as a test subject.
He could test it with Formidable’s room, since he had technically visited it, but the aviation cruiser had zero desire to trigger an international scandal.
And opening a portal to the Gadzhiyevo military base was out of the question—it would spawn a mountain of questions from the Brass that he had no answers for.
“Don’t pout,” Ulyanovsk sighed.
“You don’t owe me a damn thing.” “But…” “I’m going to change real quick.” Raising his palm, the aviation cruiser materialized a Ka-52 attack helicopter.
The tiny chopper lifted off with a low thwup-thwup-thwup of its rotors, hovering to the side and aiming its under-wing ordnance directly at the girl.
“He’ll keep an eye on you while I’m gone.” Receiving a timid nod in response, Ulyanovsk stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.
With a short mental command, his civilian clothes vanished, replaced by his pristine combat uniform, sans the heavy flight deck rigging.
A warship visiting a foreign port on official invitation was a big deal, not just a casual ‘tea party.’ The rules of maritime diplomacy applied equally to Kanmusu.
Therefore, Ulyanovsk decided to dress strictly by the book.
Considering Sirius’s legendary clumsiness, he also did it for tactical reasons—just in case they ran into any other Kansen.
Returning to the bedroom, he was greeted by a highly entertaining scene.
The girl was trying to get a closer look at the hovering helicopter, while the tiny fairy pilot actively led her in circles, clearly trying to trip the Kansen over her own dress discarded on the floor.
“I’m ready,” Ulyanovsk announced his presence.
It was a mistake.
Sirius’s foot was already tangled in the sleeve of her dress.
The moment she whipped around, she tripped over her own feet and crashed to the floor.
“Ow, ow, ow…” she groaned, sprawled across the deck with her aft section sticking straight up in the air.
Executing a triumphant victory lap—and intentionally messing up the Kansen’s hair with its rotor wash—the tiny helicopter took its place hovering over its host ship’s shoulder.
Mentally commending his pilot for a job well done, Ulyanovsk dismissed the airborne hooligan and offered the girl a hand.
“Maybe next time, clear the deck before you try playing inspector?” he asked.
“Sorry,” Sirius accepted his hand, pulling herself up.
“It’s just the first time I’ve ever seen a carrier aircraft that doesn’t scale up to full size after launch.” “Like I said last time, we don’t do the whole ‘summoning full-sized hulls’ thing,” Ulyanovsk reminded her.
“Now, I’ve got a question for you.” “What is it?” she asked, shooting a deeply offended glare at the empty space where the chopper had been.
“How exactly do you plan to pull this off?” the aviation cruiser pointed at the glowing interdimensional doorway.
“Let’s say jamming the doors open isn’t an issue.
What next?” Sirius fell into deep thought.
“I can just bring it to you while you wait in my room,” the improperly dressed maid quickly suggested.
“And how are your colleagues going to react to that?
Neptune, for example?” The guy leaned in, closely inspecting the hinges of the wardrobe.
The furniture in this spare bedroom was a perfect copy of his own room, save for the wardrobe.
His original closet had heroically perished during his anti-interdimensional-invasion countermeasures, which had unfortunately proven highly ineffective.
Thus, this new relic from the Soviet era shared all the exact same structural quirks.
“Not only are you a warship, but you’re also a Royal Navy maid just wandering around slacking off,” Ulyanovsk finished his thought, delivering a precise kick to the door hinge, jamming it open permanently.
“That won’t be a problem,” the girl smiled back.
“I returned from a combat deployment yesterday, and Lady Belfast granted me a day off to rest.” “If you say so…” the aviation cruiser shrugged, theatrically parting the hanging dresses like stage curtains.
His mind was already racing, calculating the tactical potential of being able to manually open portals like this, even if they only led to a parallel world.
Theoretically, if he could establish a solid rapport with the owner of the room on the other side and figure out the reverse-activation process, Ulyanovsk would gain a flawless extraction route from almost anywhere on the planet.
Even deep within Lost Territories—shrouded by electronic warfare storms and cut off from humanity by hordes of starving Abyssals—there were plenty of intact buildings far inland.
History had proven that, for whatever bizarre reason, the Abyssals lost all interest in remote structures the moment humans abandoned them.
Ulyanovsk made a mental note to recon one of those abandoned settlements at the first opportunity.
He still needed to figure out if the portal strictly required an actual wardrobe to function, or if any door leading to a closed room would do.
“Just a minute!” Sirius blurted out, practically vaulting back to her side of the portal.
With shocking agility, she snagged the hanger holding her maid uniform on her way through.
Why she didn’t just use partial-summoning to equip her gear remained a total mystery to the guy.
“I just need to change.
Don’t peek, okay?” the girl poked her head around the door frame, blushing furiously.
“Look, with what you’re wearing right now, peeking is entirely redundant.
Those athletic shorts and that top do a worse job covering you up than any of these scraps,” Ulyanovsk poked a finger at a stack of silky lace underwear.
“Besides, we’re both ships.
You think I’ve never seen a fellow cruiser with a bare hull in drydock?” He conveniently left out the fact that, due to his historical cancellation, he had literally never seen such a thing.
“I’llbebackin a sec!” Sirius squeaked, her face practically glowing red before she vanished from sight.
A loud thud of a falling body echoed from the other side, immediately followed by the crash of a shattering vase.
*** As soon as Sirius—after struggling immensely to change clothes—hurriedly bolted from her room, Ulyanovsk’s radar suites kicked into overdrive.
He wasn’t entirely sure what specific data points he needed to record.
The fleeing maid clearly didn’t possess any supernatural abilities beyond hiding a broadsword in her cleavage, so he tried to catalog every minor detail of the room.
Within reasonable limits, of course—he wasn’t about to go rummaging through her nightstands and drawers, of which there were quite a few in the relatively small space.
His fingers automatically wrapped around the deck of fighter cards stashed in his breast pocket, specifically the ones outfitted with recon pods.
Weighing his options, he glanced at the open window pane.
With a precise flick of his wrist, the aviation cruiser sailed a plastic card outside.
Mid-air, it erupted into a small cloud of white fire.
A sleek Su-57 stealth fighter tore out of the flames, its soft engine whine completely masked by the squawking seagulls as it rocketed into the sky.
“I need to ask the eggheads what the hell they tweaked on those engines,” the guy smirked, watching the pale blue triangular silhouette vanish into the clouds.
Since integrating the new stealth fighters into his air wing, he had noticed a bizarre quirk.
In standard patrol mode, they flew significantly quieter than their predecessors—the older Su-33s and MiG-29s.
However, the moment they shifted into attack mode, the engines emitted an eerie, piercing whistle that sounded exactly like the wail of an angry banshee.
The fairy pilots claimed they didn’t notice anything unusual, and Ulyanovsk would have written it off as his own imagination, but the shore observers had reported hearing the exact same phenomenon.
With that kind of terrifying acoustic accompaniment, a mundane, boring bombing drill turned into a highly theatrical spectacle.
But right now, he didn’t need to rain iron bombs on anyone.
The fighter’s tiny radar signature—amplified by built-in stealth tech and low-vis camo—made it the perfect tool to recon the foreign base in broad daylight, capturing it in its fully operational glory.
Ulyanovsk felt absolutely zero remorse about running a recon drone over allied airspace.
If they spotted it—oh well, they had sent their own scouts into his bedroom, too.
If they didn’t, that was a ‘them’ problem.
The base honestly failed to impress him.
From a bird’s-eye view, he could easily mistake it for an elite, oceanfront residential district.
The architecture was absurdly extravagant for a military installation.
There was a literal, full-blown palace sitting dead in the center.
Even the supply depots were decorated with intricate bas-reliefs and lush landscaping.
Cozy green parks and tree-lined walkways dotted with statues and fountains filled the spaces between buildings.
There was even a decorative pond complete with a gazebo, currently occupied by a group of Kanmusu having a tea party.
But then again, this was exactly how Ulyanovsk imagined a Shipgirl sanctuary.
Maximum comfort for the girls, with all the ugly, functional port services shoved completely out of sight.
The only thing that genuinely confused him were the bizarre vessels anchored in the roadstead.
They didn’t match a single historical project he knew of.
They looked incredibly distorted, as if some twisted mind had taken a basic landing craft strapped with a machine gun and scaled it up by a factor of ten.
Judging by their placement, these ugly brutes served as localized coastal defense platforms.
There were others, too—weirdly squashed ships roughly resembling destroyers and cruisers.
Swarms of massive yellow chicks, easily the size of large dogs, scurried around their piers.
“Fascinating tactical approach to fighting a highly advanced enemy—blind them with the sheer absurdity of your armaments,” Ulyanovsk critiqued the setup.
“Hmm?” His eyes locked onto a familiar platinum-blonde bob bouncing above a black-and-white maid uniform.
Sirius was jogging toward a relatively low-slung building lined with panoramic windows.
Another maid carrying a serving tray stepped out to meet her.
“Interesting,” the aviation cruiser muttered, adjusting the stealth fighter’s flight path to maintain observation.
*** “Sirius?” Belfast called out, instinctively stepping out of the Dido-class light cruiser’s projected collision path just to be safe.
“Ma’am?!” Sirius squeaked in surprise, slamming on the brakes and nearly tripping over a microscopic indentation in the pavement.
“You have the day off,” Her Majesty’s Head Maid observed, giving the girl a once-over.
“Why the sudden rush?” “I got hungry,” Sirius blurted out, entirely failing to invent a more plausible excuse.
“But the cafeteria is much closer to your dorms,” Belfast noted, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
She knew the habits of her subordinates perfectly.
The Kansen’s desperate craving for sweets after 1800 hours was no secret to the Head Maid.
However, instead of answering, Sirius began nervously wringing the hem of her apron, desperately looking anywhere but her boss’s eyes.
Belfast’s internal radar immediately began screaming about incoming trouble.
“I just wanted,” Sirius started, licking her dry lips, “something…
heavier.” That answer instantly put Her Majesty’s Head Maid on high alert.
No matter how notoriously clumsy Sirius was, she usually only managed to make Belfast sweat when a commanding officer or the Queen herself was within collateral damage range.
But right now…
“Are you feeling alright?” Belfast asked, genuine concern creeping into her voice.
“Yes, everything is perfectly fine,” Sirius shook her head frantically, choking back a nervous giggle.
“I’m just incredibly hungry,” she dropped her gaze guiltily.
“Well, you are in luck,” Belfast smiled.
“Duke of York requested the Manjuu to prepare ‘Toad in the Hole’ for tea time, so there should be a few servings left in the kitchen.” “Meat with tea?” Sirius shuddered.
“You know the Duchess’s specific tastes,” the Head Maid winked at her.
“But still…” her subordinate winced.
“Meat served alongside a trifle…” “Our duty is to accommodate Her Majesty’s guests,” Belfast reminded her firmly.
“But I will not keep you any longer,” she nodded toward the dining hall doors.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Sirius dropped into a hasty curtsy and bolted inside.
Which only managed to multiply the suspicions of the Head Maid—who just so happened to moonlight as the leader of the Royal Navy’s black-ops intelligence division.
Stepping aside, she shoved her tray into the wings of a passing Manjuu with strict orders to deliver it to Edinburgh.
Then, she settled into the shadows, waiting for her highly suspicious subordinate to emerge.
High above Belfast’s head, a model airplane zipped past with a faint whistle, practically hovering directly over the dining hall.
Executing a sharp, banking turn, it bolted away toward the sea.
“I really need to reprimand Hermes for flying her models at unsafe altitudes,” the girl whispered, melting perfectly into the shade of a nearby tree.