Chapter 1: Atomic Whispers

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"What on earth...?"

The shipgirl stared at her screen. Various readouts and graphs informed her of their findings.

"Where did that come from...?"

A sudden massive spike in radiation had been detected in the open ocean, nowhere near any of the Azur Lane homelands.

Sensors in the area triangulated the location of the source to a place no one had visited for decades, a place that most of the older shipgirls had very unfond memories of.

A location no shipgirl in their right mind would ever want to voluntarily visit.

Bikini Atoll.

Or rather what remained of it ever since the atomic bomb testing performed there was ended.

"Impossible. Nothing has ever been there, nothing should be there since it's supposed to be a forbidden zone of sorts."

The shipgirl in particular, a destroyer named Mullany, adjusted her computers and refreshed the sensors' connections. Perhaps it was just a glitch in the systems.

But when the connections were reestablished, they still showed the same radiation spike at Bikini Atoll.

Something was off about this. If it wasn't an error with the system, then it had to be real.

She picked up the landline phone on her desk and pressed a special button, dialling a number.

"Baltimore? It's Mullany, up at the monitor station. Something's come up that I think you should see."

"What have you got?"

"A radiation spike. Beyond anything I've seen."

"Where is it?"

"...Bikini Atoll."

"...I see...Should I bring anyone else?"

Mullany considered. "If anyone from the Royal Navy is available, they should see this too."

"I'll see who I can find. In the meantime, watch for any changes. Call me on my cell if anything happens."

"Of course!"

The call ended there, and Mullany set the phone on its receiver.

Anxiously she returned to watching her screens while she waited for the higher-ups to arrive.

*********

Baltimore, who had found Enterprise, Hornet, Pennsylvania, Prince of Wales, and Belfast, arrived later at the monitor station.

"We're here, Mullany!"

"A-Ah! Miss Enterprise! Hornet! And...Miss Wales?! And Belfast! Glad you could come!"

"No need to be so formal, Mullany," Wales chuckled, patting the now-nervous destroyer on her shoulder. Belfast curtsied in greeting.

"Show us what you found."

"R-right! So, you know the sensors we set up in most of our old atom bomb test sites to track the radiation levels? There was a sudden spike in the Bikini Atoll area."

"Bikini Atoll...? But that's-"

"The place where most of us were unfairly and uselessly subjected to atom bomb tests? Yes."

"How large is this spike?"

Mullany checked the appropriate instruments. "Take a look for yourself."

Cleveland shuddered. "That...that's equivalent to at least 2 nuclear weapons!"

You've reached the end of published parts.

⏰ Last updated: Feb 09, 2023 ⏰

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