Fleetgirls at Floodtide (Azur Lane/1900s Alternate History)

[Explore the Vessel]
See who else was around, perhaps I could find my XO and Chief Petty Officer.

Thanks to @Armoury for the beta!

—

I sigh, staring at the spot Leviathan had been standing only a few moments prior. "We shall explore the ship then, find our new Chief and XO if we can. I was hoping to invite everyone to a dinner tonight, but it's rather short notice at this point and I do believe Leviathan is upset with me."

"Bitch." Cassin snarls.

"Misplaced idealism more likely," I reply. "Everyone that has ever spoken about her has remarked about her pleasantness."

"Could be putting on a kind face." Cassin remarks.

I think on that for a moment, then shake my head. "No, I don't believe so. I think she just has an idea in her head of how this should go. And I do understand her frustration, but it's not going to work, the Navy doesn't have time to entertain it."

"And if she refuses to sail?" Cassin asks, the destroyer moving up to the open windows of the bridge.

"She doesn't have a choice," I say quietly. "The navy wants its carrier, and cube can be removed from the ship if necessary."

Cassin pales slightly, her hand closing and opening repeatedly in nervousness. It wasn't something I could blame her for. For a shipgirl, it was a death. Their conciousness, their existence was held in the 'Wisdom Cube' a brilliant sapphire box contained within the vessel. They could summon their rigging when around it, and it was, in essence, their 'soul'. To remove it from their vessel is the equivalent of tearing out a man's soul and putting it in a box. It had only been done a handful of times, at the consequence of the death of the girl in question.

"Do… do you think it will-"

"No, no I do not." I reply, cutting Cassin off. "She's being foolish, but that can change. Give me time. For now, lets find the Chief."

"Oh, that's an easy one," Cassin says, pointing a finger behind me towards the door.

I turn my head, and see… a man standing there with an eagle patch on his shoulder. He wasn't a tall man, a few inches shorter than me. Bald, with no facial hair to speak up, the bit of pudge he carried was enough to give him a rather doughy face with nothing to hide it. But the wizened lines and sharp look in his eyes told me enough of the mans experience.

"Admiral." The man greets, his accent germanic like the rest. "Chief Petty Officer Walter Klein, I heard you were aboard."

"You heard correctly," I then offer a hand forward. "How'd you find me?"

The man takes it and shakes it, his grip firm. "The pilots on the deck were talking about your arrival, and I was told to expect the CO to come aboard today." He then looks past me towards Cassin curiously.

"DD-372, Cassin," Cassin says. "His previous… and more pleasant command."

Walter adopts a confused and mildly insulted look, and I speak up before he can ask. "We met Leviathan."

"... Ah." Walter replies. "Unless you happen to have changed your name…"

"I'm Irish-American." I reply.

"My apologies Admiral, she's rather deadset on this idea." Walter says after a few moments.

I shrug my shoulders. "She's entitled to her ideals, but that isn't how things are going to go." I then tilt my head slightly, "immigrant, or born here if I may ask?"

Walter straightens up a bit. "Born here sir, family came here a good decade before the war."

"How long you been aboard?"

"Leviathan?" Walter asks.

I nod.

"Two years, I was serving on the Chattanooga when I was reassigned here, before that I was on the Langley and the Yorktown."

"Good, you have carrier experience, and a long career. How's the crew?"

"Motivated sir, very motivated. A group of them is whitewashing a wall in the hanger now to make space for kill-markers."

"All of Pearl is motivated at the moment," I reply, not that I'm disinterested myself. My ship and crew made it out okay, but my home had been bombed and good men had died. "I still need to find my XO, any idea where he might be?"

"Last I saw him he was in the hanger helping get things moved around," Walter replies.

"Would you mind leading me there then?" I ask.

—

It's a quick trip back through the two bridges below me, then out the 'backdoor' of the tower and onto the gunwell. It was one of two that were on either side of the bridge, a large metal platform that jutted off the side, covered with anti-aircraft guns, with a small railing to keep sailors from tumbling off the side and into the water. It was… different, than the Cassin, who kept all her guns on the ship itself, but the pilots might well complain if there was a Bofors gun in the middle of the runway. Regardless, the gunwell was lower than the deck itself, and mostly hidden from view, to the point where now I can see there actually are men about, besides those two pilots I saw earlier.

Clangs, hammering, drilling, and general work abounded. Men were taking apart the guns or putting them back together. Cleaning, oiling, repairing, replacing, every battery, every firing position, every nut and bolt. There wasn't a single piece of machinery on the gunwell that wasn't in active work by someone. Quad-mounts swung, .50s pivoted, and men worked. Few noticed my presence, so busy in their task, those that did simply moved out of the way, too busy for anything else. Curses in German, conversation in English, and the sound of machinery and handtools create a cacophony that was familiar. But it all paled in comparison as Walter, Cassin and I stepped into the hanger.

Before there was noise.

Now there was noise.

Bells rung, engines fired, and the ship lived. I stepped into a large space, open and bright with the hanger doors open. Allowing sunlight to pour into the hanger, complimenting the lighting coming from above and revealing a shop floor roughly the length of the entire ship. Sparks flew, illuminating men crouched atop planes. A plane–cart drove past, hauling behind it a trailer with an entire entire on it. Past it was a series of men hauling a wing across the hanger on a long blanket, carefully moving to not trip over it or other people. Planes, bombs and guns. Hundreds of men were down here working, preparing. All the planes were in various states, some hung from the ceiling on hooks, freshly painting and looking ready to go. Others were in pieces, little more than fuselages without wings, or tails, or noses.

"Holy fuck." Cassin gasps.

"Language."

"Holy shit."

"Not better."

Walter smiles. "She's been busier than ever since the attack. Still has a bit of cosmetic damage on her port side from a near miss, but she'll be sailing again soon." He then looks around for a moment, then points a finger towards the far wall. "Captain Sebastian."

It's a quick walk over, with Cassin rubbernecking the entire time. Distracted from her dislike of Leviathan, and the fact we were moving. By the fact that we could likely fit her entire hull in this space with room to spare. I couldn't blame her, it was impressive, and damned busy besides. The Captain was a younger looking man, far younger than the Chief, I would put him at maybe thirty. He turned to look at the lot of us as we approached, and I saw his eye widen before he rather quickly ignored the man he was talking to to focus on me. "Admiral sir, I wasn't aware you were aboard."

"I know," I reply. "Finish what you were doing, this can wait."

"It was nothing sir," the Captain replies. "Just going over the maintenance plan."

"Is our maintenance plan not important?"

The Captain hesitates for a moment, "it is sir, but it's already in progress… I don't really need to be involved."

"The XO isn't involved in the day-to-day on this ship?" Cassin asks.

The Captain's eyes flit to Cassin, then to me.

"If I may," Walter says, and my attention turns to the Chief. "The Captain here has been working with the repair crews for the past few days and is just making sure things are going as they should. He also has hardly slept since the seventh."

The Captain flushes slightly, making the young man look even younger. I give him mercy, stepping forward, I offer my hand. "Admiral Stevens."

The man pauses, switches gears, then takes it. "Captain Sebastian Babler…" he replies. "You are not…"

"German, no. Yes, I've met Leviathan. Yes, I'm aware. No, you don't need to apologize for it." I reply.

The man opens his mouth, then closes it after several moments processing all that. Cassin, meanwhile for her part. Was watching as a Hellcat was pushed down the hanger, a classy pinup on Leviathan painted on its fuselage. Above us, true to what Walter was saying earlier, a section of the hanger wall was being painted a stark white, a contrast to the grey steel otherwise around. Someone else was busy above it on a ladder, stenciling in 'Kills'.

"How are the repairs coming along?" I ask.

"Rapid and well," Sebastian replies. "We only took minor damage, and the engine upgrade we were slated for has been expedited. We had been on the waitlist for some time. They're undergoing testing at the moment."

I nod. "That's good, I expect us to be underway soon. We can't start flight training until we're out of Pearl, but expect a steady rotation of pilots going in and out. They'll need all the experience they can get before we see combat."

"This is my first assignment on a carrier sir, I was on cruisers until about a month ago." Sebastian says.

I smile. "Leviathan based reassignment?"

The man nods.

"Well, that will likely end today. We're going into combat and we can expect to take losses, we can't afford to be picky. Least of all with pilots. The sirens… they move like nothing else, it takes a skilled pilot to shoot them down."

"When are we heading out anyways?" Cassin asks.

"Soon, as stated." I reply. "That's up to how the repairs go on the Leviathan, but I have our orders already." I tap my back pocket for emphasis. I had planned on going over them tonight, at dinner with the other officers. But I hadn't even had a chance to mention my plan for that with Leviathan before… that entire debacle had occurred.

Both men, Walter and Sebastian, seem to become rather interested at that. Though Sebastian also has an air of nervousness around him, it may be permanent. "The Japs? Or the Germans?" Walter asks quietly.

It wasn't the Japs, the Navy apparently had made it rather clear. Or rather, the Brits had. The Germans were landing at Dover and controlled the English Channel. It was a slow going mess of a thing, but they were pushing in now on their second attempt at a landing. The British Navy meanwhile was in port, waiting for a moment to try and clear the channel, but the sheer amount of vessels the Nazis had was staggering.

The objective was simple. Clear the channel. The US Navy coming from one direction, the Royal Navy from another. A classic pincer, but… it was more complicated than that. The Germans owned the air, and they had their Italian allies in complete control of the Mediterranean as well, and the Navy didn't much enjoy the idea of Regia Marina sneaking out to cause havoc on the flank in the midst of the attack. So a decently sized screening force was sailing to the Strait of Gibraltar, both to relieve the British force held up there, and to keep the Italians from trying anything too tricky. The rest, of course, was going to be the anvil for the British hammer.

Operation Alamo, apparently it was known as. And the war planners had been coming up with it since the first attempted German invasion. That one, at least, wasn't necessary as the Brits had thrown them back in to the channel. This time however, it was going. Along with more than half of the US Navy. If we lost Britain, we'd be in for a much longer war after all…

I produce the slip of paper from my back pocket with my good hand, folding it open. "We're going-"

—

Note regardless you'll be fighting both at one point or another, this is just how we start.

[] [To North Africa]
Fight the Italian Navy, liberate Northern Africa and save Gibraltar. Get involved in a conspiracy far beyond your station.

[] [To the English Channel]
Fight the Kriesgmarine, chase submarines, and get involved in far more politics than you have stomach for.