Wielding three glow sticks like claws in between her clenched fingers, Shiranui lowered herself effortlessly into the opened steel hatch as the three other destroyers looked down at her, Sendai holding the steel rope that was tied around Shiranui's waist as she felt around with her gloved hand and finally clamped her fingers around a cold hard handle of sorts.
Shiranui found herself pulling herself towards a ship ladder welded into the wall, finding her footing on the rungs as she swung her hand around to both illuminate her surroundings and clear the dust that permeated the air as she lowered herself into the Abyss.
Her brown school shoe finally hit the hard floor and the destroyed hatch plate at the base of the ladder, a victim of an explosive breach charge to circumvent the issue of needing specialized equipment to remove the weld metal, the Kagerou-Class destroyer using her feet to clear what remained of the steel hatch from the landing area as she untied the steel rope from the carabiner clip on her utility belt.
Shiranui got off the steel ladder as she reached for her 12 cm Single Gun Cannon in order to provide some form of protection against whatever booby traps the Abyssals might have laid to kill trespassing ship girls.
Shiranui secured the area as she checked around cautiously for traps while Arare and Kagerou lowered themselves into the mystery hatch to join her, Sendai sitting right outside the hatch so as to watch over their surroundings to make sure that the hatch stayed open and didn't accidentally slam shut on them or something.
They also needed someone to relay messages between the two surveying ship girls and the three destroyers who were uncovering the Abyssal secret base, since it was hard for radio signals to penetrate deep underground and through thick Abyssal steel.
Shiranui tossed a few glow sticks into the distance, one of them bouncing off a metallic structure of sorts as the delayed echo reverberated throughout the dead-silent base, the three of them having turned on their ship girl modes to prepare for anything.
Kagerou was the one who took point as she started walking forward, lighting up a few glow sticks of her own as she made her way through the underground facility and dropping the glow sticks occasionally to provide a trail back to the steel hatch as their green-tinted luminescent night-vision eyes picked up the inactive equipment in their immediate surroundings.
There were steel assembly arms hanging from the ceiling and lining the sides of a halted assembly line, ghost-like limbs of an arcane design with bundles of exposed wires lining the machinery.
The metallic construction tools were frozen in time as their lifeblood, that was electricity, had been cut from the facility, and were threatening to stretch down and grab them with their open steel claws, all overlooking one of their own that had fallen onto the steel walkway and rendering it mostly inaccessible.
It wasn't out of the question to assume that the facility they were currently in was clearly used at a point in time for production, metal shavings and pieces of dark Abyssal armor littering the factory floor and uncleaned by the Abyssals before leaving.
Torn wires snaked down each module that sat atop the torn assembly line at regular intervals, grounded to the partially destroyed conveyor belt and created to hold a now non-existent unit up as the assembly line previously worked to assemble the individual parts they held, several of them toppled over like fallen dominoes.
An acrid stench of motor oil and metal filled the air, a testament to its true purpose before its demise, the Abyssals likely having expected this facility to be well-hidden enough with the hatch being welded shut, Shiranui suddenly feeling rather thankful for the breaching charges provided by the Coordinators, just one of many gadgets they had to carry on every mission to make sure they could overcome most obstacles like locked doors.
They had thrashed everything that was in this facility to a degree where everything was still recoverable, but never came back to this island to reoccupy this facility as it was still a hotly-contested island that no one side occupied for long.
Shiranui could hear Kagerou's distinct voice ringing out through her grainy-green night-vision mode that illuminated her world, not unlike the green goggles utilized in the Wizard of Oz to make her world appear green as Kagerou looked back at them and stated.
"Well, we can't just look around and simply speculate as to whatever they've made here. I think we may need to hack a few computers to find out what they were planning through their servers."
But Arare pointed out something that they may have failed to consider, seeing that the Abyssals weren't the kind to simply leave their bases unattended.
"I'm rather suspicious that they Abyssals don't have at least some traps in place, and if even they didn't, I think they may at least be aware of our presence here. I don't believe we have the luxury of time anymore if they are indeed aware of our presence on this island, and we may only have the element of surprise left with the radar-cancelling pikes installed."
Shiranui nodded, seeing the logic in that as she considered the probability of them being found out and trying to rethink their moves.
"Well, the Abyssals might still send that patrol fleet here, just earlier than we expected if we did indeed trip some sort of alarm entering this factory, and they might send an armada here to stop us from leaving this place. But the good thing is that this island's on the edge of the Safety Zone, so we still have some time to act, just that our schedule might've been pushed forward and our window to escape narrowing if they indeed want to bring an entire Abyssal Fleet to greet us."
Looking to Arare and Kagerou, she directed them as to what they were going to do.
"Arare, give me the laptop and go tell Sendai to notify Chitose and Goya to watch out for the Abyssal patrol coming earlier than expected, and also get her to activate the radar-jamming pikes to hide our presence. Kagerou and I will search the rooms for any sort of recoverable intelligence before the ambush to find anything we can bring back to the Coordinators."
Arare nodded, taking off the sling bag to hand over to Shiranui as Kagerou began looking for a server room to access the facility's data cache and extract whatever they could from their servers before the Abyssals brought the hammer down on them, Arare plodding off towards the source of the dimly illuminated squarish hatch where Sendai kept watch.
Shiranui opened up the sling bag to bring out, unfold and boot up the laptop that was used by the Infiltration Fleet to hack into the Abyssal servers and extract everything that was of use to them, generally disposable should the Abyssals decide to leave a virus behind in their disconnected servers to fry their laptops in order to slow them down.
Setting down her 12 cm Single Gun Cannon to pull out the various paraphernalia needed to accomplish their task, she could easily make out Arare's soft voice speaking up to a dark-haired light cruiser whose head was peeking down the hatch as Kagerou's light steps resounded throughout the empty facility, connecting the various cables and USB sticks in a practiced routine.
She suddenly heard a large banging noise ringing throughout the facility a moment after Kagerou's footsteps stopped, sounding not unlike an explosion in the confined spaces of the ringing facility, causing the pink-haired destroyer to jump upon hearing that.
Shiranui's hands were itching to reach for her 12 cm Cannon to check out the commotion, but her sister ship's voice calling out through the darkness stayed her hand somewhat.
"I'm OK, just kicking down doors to breach them. Am I being too loud?"
Followed by Shiranui and Arare's exasperated,
"Yes."
To which Kagerou thankfully took into account as the next door was opened normally, Shiranui almost able to hear the clicking of the door mechanism as the laptop whirred upon coming to life, finally displaying the image she desired as the infiltration program was already booted up and ready to run.
Shiranui turned off her built in night-vision ability to prevent the computer's LED screen from blinding her and reaching into her waist bag to bring out, wear and turn on her head-strap flashlight.
She heard Kagerou shouting out to prepare Arare and herself for the next deafening noise that was about to engulf the underground facility, the name ship of the Kagerou-Class destroyers calling out to them.
"I'm using another breaching charge! Y'all might want to cover your ears for this!"
Shiranui plugged her ears with her gloved index fingers, her superhuman ears still clearly picking up the ear-splitting controlled explosion of the breaching charge, this time considerably muffled by the material of her gloves and Shiranui having braced herself mentally for it as she lowered her hands to take in the sharp echoes still present throughout the facility.
Shiranui made her way towards where she believed the breaching sound to have originated from after holstering her Cannon and picking up the laptop, occasionally spotting a dropped glow stick to mark Kagerou's path as she moved down a corridor of sorts.
She was warily watching every opened door she came across to watch for enemies Kagerou might have missed, watching the destroyed computers and shredded papers littering the floor and untouched by even the wildlife of the island and perfectly preserved to mark the final activities of the Abyssals that occupied these rooms.
And the fact that all the ship girl signatures of her teammates were now wiped off her radar upon the radio wave-jamming pikes being activated just made her that little bit more paranoid, her free hand hovering over her holstered Cannon out of habit, having been through a few sticky situations in the past where it paid to have a quick trigger finger to respond to unexpected threats.
But there was no need for that, the silhouette standing at the end of the room next door resembling her sister positioned in the middle of a wrecked server room, Kagerou spinning around quickly and tightening her grip on her own 12 Cm Cannon, but the both of them relaxed and nodded to each other as Shiranui approached the end of the room with the laptop in hand.
Shiranui turned down the brightness of her head-strap flashlight as she stepped over the demolished steel door that she assumed to have been previously locked to require a breaching charge, and could make out Kagerou jerking her thumb back to point at the thrashed computer server that was left unattended.
And although it was obviously dark, Kagerou had likely found the one server that seemed as though whatever was within wasn't completely demolished, and was thus recoverable when connected to their powerful yet disposable laptop.
Kagerou leaned down to grab the cover of the deformed access panel before ripping it clean off with her superhuman strength, tossing it to one corner and causing the impact to produce a clanging sound that resonated throughout the room, ignored by both the Kagerou sisters as they looked down at the busted electronic hardware within.
Kneeling down and looking through the torn wires, Shiranui reached in and rummaged around until she felt the hard, cool touch of a motherboard, gently prying it out and unplugging the various cables connected to it.
Retrieving a few USB cables and an Ethernet cable connected to the laptop, Shiranui plugged them into their respective ports and activated the hacking program to access its partially destroyed content and attempt to recover whatever they could.
Looking at the few lines of code running down the black computer windows and the few images that popped up on the screen for an instant before being covered up by other images, all of it almost as mysterious as hieroglyphs to her as she looked back at Kagerou.
"I think this might take a while, so I think it might be wise to use this time to split up and look through the various shredded papers in the other rooms for any valuable information."
Kagerou nodded in agreement, the both of them now having head strap flashlights on their foreheads to prepare for the manual search and reorganization of the pieces of paper on the floor and preparing to play a game of 52 pickup in different rooms to salvage the paper pieces.
And after that, it was the tedious job of putting the pieces back together like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with the help of clear tape to help hold the pieces together, Shiranui's ship girl mode helping her out a lot as she utilized her heightened pattern recognition skills and improved memory to remember each piece to put back a small folder's worth of material in about five minutes.
Getting back up from her kneeling position, Shiranui walked back into the room where the laptop was still running, Kagerou coming up behind her to display her own recovered file as the laptop was pretty much finished.
And when the laptop was done, Shiranui uncoupled the cables to briskly walk back towards the opened hatch to rendezvous with the night battle light cruiser, Shiranui worrying that things might be going to shit faster than she thought if the Abyssals really did leave behind some sort of tripwire system to detect metallic humanoids trespassing in the facility.
Looking back up at the Sendai-Class light cruiser's face, Shiranui stored her laptop in her sling bag and slapped her hand on the metal rungs to climb back up to the surface and take in a breath of fresh ocean air instead of the stale, aged air that permeated the underground facility.
Sendai and Arare helped them up from the opening in the ground, the two sisters dusting themselves off after handing over everything to the light cruiser, who was now more energetic at night, yet contained her enthusiasm as she skimmed through everything quietly.
Shiranui looked to the skies as she noted a lone reconnaissance plane lazily flying through the air and patrolling the skies closer to the Pacific Ocean, likely trying to detect any incoming Abyssals that came in from the large sea.
Shiranui looked down at the seated Arare as she asked in a concerned tone, trying to estimate how fast the Abyssal patrol fleet was going to reach the island before the backup fleet arrived with Ru-Class and Ta-Class battleships to crush their stealth-based fleet.
"Have the Abyssals arrived yet? We might need to prepare for the ambush and interrogation right now if the Abyssals detected our presence on the island simply because we discovered and entered that base."
Arare shook her head, explaining the situation which had likely already changed for the worse.
"We told Goya and Chitose to pull out all the stops to keep an eye out for the Abyssals, and Chitose told us that she managed to send out a reconnaissance plane to scout the area passively. We can't communicate with Chitose right now since she's now out on the ocean..."
Tapping the side of her head with her right index finger, Arare explained the ways that the seaplane tender would try to notify them.
"If the recon plane detects Abyssals, it'll fly back towards Chitose in a straight line. But if it can't detect any incoming Abyssals before going back to Chitose to refuel, it'll fly in a loop above us before landing."
Sendai was now looking at the two recovered files after handing the laptop and sling bag back to Arare to handle as she had one file clamped under her armpit, furiously flipping through Shiranui's file as she exclaimed.
"What the hell have the Abyssals been making to need so much resources?
I mean, I think it's safe to assume that the Abyssals may some sort of bottomless resource pit to spawn so many Abyssals, but what the hell, man!"
Shiranui knelt down on one knee to look at the cover page that Sendai was holding up for them all to see.
The three destroyers all looked as Sendai cycled through the papers, leaning in so that they could get a clearer look at the graphs and statements on the papers that were spread out on the ground before them, detailing a wide variety of operations from receipts to resource transfers via Wa-Class transport ships, to scraps of blueprints for something that was undecipherable. Arare was looking through the few recovered pictures and computer documents recovered from the destroyed server, and the things she saw seemed to corroborate with Sendai's statements.
"These documents were orders from someone high up in the chain of command of the Abyssals. It seems that whoever up top used this island as a means of transport and creation of Abyssal units while we were concentrated on securing our naval routes to Europe via the Suez Canal. It could mean that they somehow knew of our intentions and tried to get what they could out of this facility before destroying it."
Shiranui looked at one of the images that were presented on the screen, stopping the slide show to compare the image of a rudder to an as of yet unknown ship with the same rudder that was shown in the partially recovered blueprints, along with two letters.
"Fl…"
Shiranui's mind was racing to try and identify the ship class from the only visual cue they had, guessing.
Fletcher?
Florida?
Sendai now placed her gloved hand on the restored cover page.
The Abyssals, efficient as computers, had never really taken up on giving their operations grandiose names. This meant that the Abyssals had held this particular subject of significant importance, as the name on the cover not only echoed the scale of this project, but also sounded of a promise of things to come.
The name on the cover was "啓示", translated to "Revelation", or "Enlightenment".
An alternate translation was "Apocalypse".
The four ship girls stared down at the puzzle pieces, trying to piece together everything with what they currently had on hand.
But Kagerou got up and patted herself down as she remarked on the situation.
"Geez, man, we're the Infiltration Fleet, not the Thinking and Brooding Fleet! I think we need to get back to the cove where we landed on to prepare ourselves to sortie in an instant. So how about making our way back instead of sitting near this god-forsaken hole here and getting a splitting headache looking at these things?"
The group of ship girls nodded, and the four of them made their way back to the cove that was located inland on the west section of the island and was covered by the radio wave-blocking pikes, which would mean that their exit from the island was pretty much covered and gave them the element of surprise against the patrol fleet.