>>6104931Several complicated expressions flash across her face. She looks down at her now-living hands, then clenches them, flexing her well-defined muscles. “I am a *battleship,*” she declares with determination. “If war has come, I shall give battle. Does Japan still have a navy?”
“They call it the ‘Maritime Self-Defence Force,’ and promise that it’s just a coast guard despite being one of the strongest fleets in the world.”
“I shall take the measure of this ‘Self-Defence Force,’ then.”
“I’ve run exercises with the JMSDF on occasion. They’re a quiet, professional sort.”
A hurried report comes from Gamma 2, one of your BARCAP fighters. Aerial contact, distance 44, bearing 140; target speed 152, bearing 310.
“Um, pardon me,” you say, as you examine the feed from their scopes.
This far out the target is a blob a few pixels across. It was probably smaller than a fighter, relatively cold on IR, and with how slow it was seemed likely to be either a Cessna or recon drone. It was still far off - its position put it somewhere between Kwajalein and Wotje - but it was still headed northwest, vaguely towards your position.
“It looks like we have company.”
>[1] Observe from a distance. It’s not changing course, and hasn’t noticed Gamma Flight yet. >[2] Intercept it. No one flies anywhere near your airspace without an appropriate escort, and with any luck whoever it is might even be interested in talking. 