Well folks I've finally gotten this omake part done, I hope ya'll enjoy this.
An Officer and his Dogs part 8
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William Corgi's eyes slowly cracked open as he woke up. He could feel that he was warm and that half of him was soaked. As awareness then swiftly returned to him, William realized he was still in one of the repair pools. He was still surrounded by the dogs of Squadron 3 and he still had PT-41 in his lap.
After examining her carefully, the Lieutenant noticed that while she looked a little bit better, she was still very seriously hurt. He briefly wondered how long he had been in the waters and got his answer quickly when he felt some very mild irritation on his stomach and chest area.
After a couple moments of bewilderment he realized what it was causing the irritation he felt. It was the result of prolong contact with diluted gasoline. No doubt from some of the still slowly seeping wounds some of the dogs had.
Taking care to be extremely careful in his actions, William gently nudged a few of the PT Corgi's aside before he very carefully removed PT-41 from his lap. When he went to move her, he held his breath; unsure if he would accidentally reopen something while trying to move her so he could stand up.
When she didn't stir or whimper as he cleared her from his lap. The Lieutenant released the breath he had been holding. Though the irritation he felt on his belly and chest was starting to annoy the hell out of him.
Especially at the junctions between the scarred and unscarred skin of his back and on his sides, it was starting to itch like hell. Though the irritation was only where he had been at the waterline and several inches or so above it.
Checking his watch, William realized that he had been asleep for nearly six and a half hours now. A sigh slipped past his lips as he started to make his way out of the pool.
However he only got three steps away from the PT Corgis of Squadron 3 before he stopped and looked back at them. Part of him wanted to head back to the barracks, shower and change into dry clothes before getting back to his work.
However, another part of him wanted to stay with Squadron 3 and keep a vigilant watch over them and PT-41 in particular. He was deeply worried about 41, she might be healing now but he wanted to be there to help her in case one of her wounds decided to reopen.
It was then that William noticed that the dogs of Squadron 3 had woken. He quietly sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I'm terribly sorry girls; I didn't mean to wake y'all" He apologized to the dogs of squadron 3.
Who only sleepily yawned before they signaled to him with semaphore flags, that they were thankful he stayed with them as long as he had and that he should get back to his duties. He stood there for a moment, unsure if he should actually go.
And then William saw PT-41 make a small movement with her one intact foot. Just slightly pushing it forward just enough to transmit the intent without it hurting her to perform the action, she was telling him to get going.
William closed his eyes with a smile for a moment before he gave the dogs a nod goodbye and then proceeded to leave the repair docks building.
Though as William stepped out of the building, the brisk, even cold winter air rapidly chilled his still very soaked half of his body; the smile on his face faded away. Instead a cold stony expression took the place of the smile he had worn before.
Though many thoughts crossed his mind as he walked back to the PT Boat Barracks, his first and foremost one would be to shower and get into dry clothes. The next thing he'd do after that would be to check both of his pistols, clean, dry and perform maintenance work on them.
After all he didn't want either weapon to jam if a situation arose where he'd need to use them. After that, then he'd get to the paperwork that had certainly piled up while he was away.
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Ensign Matilda Jones idly poked at the other half of the Salisbury steak on her plate with a fork. She wasn't able to bring herself to finish eating despite the fact that she was having dinner much later than normal.
A fair number of people on base seemed to be having dinner far later than normal. Given how the mess Hall was fairly crowded despite the fact that the time was almost 2300.
Though that didn't surprise her, not at all given what had transpired earlier today. She was relieved that they weren't under the threat of possible Abyssal invasion anymore. However, she still felt very uneasy. Especially since the all clear wasn't given until a couple of hours ago. Matilda was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she jumped slightly in her seat when she felt someone tap her shoulder.
Looking up she saw Crawford looking at her with a rather concerned expression on his face. "Are you alright Matilda?"
"Not Really Mikey... it's the Lieutenant, he hasn't come out of the repair docks yet and it just makes me think about..." Matilda hesitated for a moment before she took a breath and pushed on. "It makes me wonder just how hurt did some of the dogs in squadron 3 get. But I'm also wondering if William is okay." Matilda took a quiet breath to center and gather her thoughts before she resumed.
"I mean, when he left early this morning with Ellen and the others... his face had that tension in it, like he was about to snap or something." Jones said quietly while thinking back to some of the people she had trained therapy and Service dogs for before she went into the Naval Academy.
Ensign Crawford reached over the table and placed a hand on Matilda's shoulder. "Matilda, I think William's gonna be fine. He's standing watch over his girls, like they do with him." He said in as best of a reassuring tone as he could muster. While he had his own concerns about the lieutenant's state of being, Mitchel decided to keep those concerns to himself for the time being.
"I don't know Mikey... I mean, you saw how the other squadrons were right? I've never seen the dogs look so, tense and worried before." Matilda whispered quietly, her doubts not quite completely cleared away despite Crawford's attempt.
The morale in the PT Boat Barracks had slumped quite a bit when Sanderson, Banks and Sandbar had returned and spoke of the condition of PT-41. Crawford was rather glad that the XO had quickly taken charge of the situation and got everyone busy before morale could sink any further. But now that everyone has time to sit and think about what happened. He knew there was a good chance that morale could dip down once more, if not among the support staff, then certainly amongst the dogs.
Crawford knew that despite however much he, Matilda, or really anyone else in the unit except for Clayton worried about William. It didn't hold a candle to how the rest of the PT Corgis worried about the Lt. Honestly to Crawford, the dog's mood reminded him of a bunch of little girls being worried and concerned for their father's wellbeing.
However before he could say anything else to Matilda, the sounds of a few trays setting down at their table made both Ensigns jump. Looking in the direction of the sound, they both did a double take for they saw three people sitting down at the table.
Gunnery Sergeant Clayton, Sergeant Banks, and a third man that the two quickly realized was Lieutenant Gallow. The expressions on all three men's faces set the two Ensigns on edge.
"We overheard y'all talking about Lt. Corgi. It just so happened that we were talking about him as well. And the three of us share Ensign Jones' sentiment; we're worried about William and what he's
going to do in the wake of this." Gallow said with a grim tone as he, Clayton and Banks all took a seat at the table.
Matilda looked at the three men for a few silent seconds before her curiosity finally made her speak up and shatter the silence that had fallen over the five of them. "Sergeant Banks and Gunnery Sergeant Clayton being worried about William I can understand. But, I don't quite get why you'd be worried about what Lt. Corgi's going to do, Lieutenant Gallow." Matilda said before she realized a split second later that Lt. Gallow, Sergeant Banks and Gunnery Sergeant Clayton could
very easily take her statement the wrong way.
A mortified expression and a flustered blush crossed Matilda's face. "I, uh, didn't mean any disrespect to Lieutenant Corgi or y-you Lieutenant Gallow! I j-just was curious about h-how you know my CO." She stammered out while trying her best to not sound as panicked as she was currently feeling. For a moment, she thought she had made a very big mistake and was about to get reamed by Lt. Gallow.
However, after a moment passed the stony expression that was on his face melted into a vaguely sympathetic smile. "That's alright Ensign, it's been a damn long day for all of us and for you especially, the both of you-" Gallow briefly paused as he looked over to Ensign Crawford "-because among many other things. You both saw a side of William you never really saw before, but you
have heard countless amounts of scuttlebutt about since you arrived to his unit. Am I wrong?" The way Gallow had asked the question and the matter-of-fact manner in which he had correctly deduced that the Ensigns had heard the rumors about William, made the hairs on both Jones' and Crawford's necks stand up.
Crawford was especially flabbergasted by the other Lieutenant's deduction, however before he could open his mouth to say anything. He was silenced when Gallow raised his hand up in a clear 'I'm not done talking yet' gesture.
"Anyways, to answer your question Ensign Jones; I know William from back before we started having our Shipgirls, PT Corgis and Blimpcats return with any sense of regularity. I was the XO for a squadron of five Dauntless Sea Ark 34-foot patrol boats based here that William was given command of, about seven months after the war began." Gallow said before he took a breath and sighed.
"William's a good squadron leader, did a damn fine job at marshaling the rest of us to get on with our duties despite how fucked just about everything we ever knew became." Gallow briefly paused before he faintly frowned.
"Though William was a bit of a hardass about preparedness. When we weren't doing patrols or training exercises, he'd do scarily thorough inspections on our boats and kit. Just to make sure we were at peak readiness if we had to engage the enemy." Dominic said with a brief half chuckle before resuming.
"I and the other Junior Officers commanding the other boats in our little squadron, which was another LTJG and a pair of Ensigns due to the manpower shortages the Navy had right after Blood Week. We knew something wasn't quite right with our squadron leader. Granted, it took us almost two months to figure that out. However, when we did figure out something wasn't right with William; the rest of the junior officers agreed on me being the one to approach the Lieutenant and get some answers, since I was the squadron XO and all that." Gallow paused once more as the memories of that talk came back to him.
Gallow's jaw tensed for a moment and then relaxed again before he resumed. "I'll tell ya, that talk was perhaps one of the scariest moments of my life. Started out innocent enough, but as it went on…two things became
very clear to me."
Dominic shivered as image of William's eyes that day rushed to the forefront of his mind, then after a moment he continued. "One was his hatred of the Abyssals. Good god, while I've seen hatred before in a person's eyes; not even the most hateful look I ever had directed at me could compare to the hate I saw in William's eyes as he described what he saw those
things that man those monsters do to his shipmates in the water."
Clayton, Banks and the two Ensigns didn't speak as Lieutenant Gallow took a moment to find the words to say next. "Their intensity was like looking at the sun…my grandmother once told me that a person's eyes can look very different when their emotions are in an extreme. When William told me his steadfast wish was to kill every last one of those monsters for what they did to his shipmates, for what they did to him." Gallow paused as the image of what had happened next reentered his mind.
"And then he
showed me the scars he had from that day, scars that
nobody in the entire squadron realized he had… I swear the man's eyes had turned a yellow color from his rage and hate. Yet he never
once raised his voice that whole time, if anything as he went on; his voice got quieter and icier till it felt like it could freeze Hell itself over."
It was at this point that Matilda found her voice and spoke up despite the fact she was quite literally shaking with fear. "A-and t-the other thing y-you learned a-about the L-lieutenant?" She barely managed to stammer out. She briefly looked over to Crawford and noticed that his face was pale and his hands shook ever so slightly. She then looked back to Gallow, who seemed a lot more collected now.
"The other thing that I learned was that he cared deeply for the people he commanded. It was strange, seeing his entire attitude go 180 like that. That change made me realize that despite his anger and hatred towards the Abyss, it hadn't consumed him entirely." Gallow said and watched the two ensigns visible relax for the most part.
"However" and he saw them coil back up with tension again "That didn't mean that William didn't push himself too far. Sleepless nights, constantly checking to make sure his sidearm was ready to go. You almost could say the man was married to the thing from how he always kept it on hand. And the work, good god the man never stopped doing work it seemed." Those statements caused the Ensigns to relax, but only fractionally because they realized that to some extent, they saw this behavior in William still.
"So, how do we help him right now?" Crawford asked Gallow, Banks and Clayton. He didn't want to just sit here and worry about the Lt; he wanted to help the man. Or see to it that he got help.
"Maybe we could try to get him to visit a psychiatrist?" Matilda forwarded with a hopeful expression on her face. An expression that swiftly fell as Banks, Gallow and Clayton all shook their heads side to side sadly at the idea she forwarded.
"We tried that before in the past, twice. Didn't really help him either time-" Clayton started to say before Banks interrupted him.
"That second time actually did get somewhere Clayton."
"Sergeant Banks that second time doesn't really count because the only real advice the psychiatrist was able to give to William was for him to spend more time with the dogs, even though they already make it a point to try and spend as much time with him whenever and wherever possible." The Gunnery Sergeant said in a low whisper. While they were in a more secluded place in the mess hall, they still didn't want to be too loud now.
"What about a karaoke night? Maybe that could pull his mind away from things?" Crawford said which made Gallow rub his chin as he thought about the idea.
"Yeah, that could possibly work. The tricky part is going to be trying to get him out of the office, but it could work. Hell I remember when I served under him we managed to drag him to a karaoke bar a couple times before in the past. He's got a fairly decent singing voice and he always seemed to have a better mood for a few days afterwards." Dominic said as Clayton gave a nod of approval.
"Shouldn't we probably contact his family too? Tell them what the situation with William is?" Crawford suggested once more, his time as a cop influencing the idea. Though Crawford grimaced as he saw the expression on Clayton's face change to one as if though he had just eaten bad food or drank spoiled milk.
"
No" Clayton practically spat the word out before taking a moment to compose himself and more importantly, speak quietly. "The backlash that'd bring from William…yeah that would get ugly fast. Don't bring his family into something he considers his problem and not theirs…His folks and two Siblings are worried enough about him as it stands. You make em freak, you'll make him snap." Clayton said with a small shudder.
"Maybe get the Admiral to forcibly make him take a small vacation?" Matilda said somewhat sheepishly before promptly wilting under the gazes of the other men at the table who weren't Crawford.
"Yeah that won't work. Like, that'll backfire completely. William isn't the kind of man to just let something go if someone puts him on a vacation." Gallow said rather flatly to Matilda. From the Lieutenant's tone, Matilda realized that Gallow was speaking from experience.
After a brief minute of silence an idea crossed Crawford's mind, one he figured might work. "What if we give him a hand with his work? Shoulder some of the burden so he ain't carrying it all alone? Could it work?" The former police K-9 handler asked the other three men. They all gave Crawford's suggestion a moment's thought before they nodded their heads in approval.
"Yeah that could work, but we'd need to make sure we don't neglect our own duties. Otherwise William
will get on us about that." Clayton said somewhat wearily.
"That could work, but there's not much I can do there. Since my duty post is vastly different from what y'all are doing." Gallow said in a rather sheepish tone. Clayton gave the other Navy Lieutenant a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
It was then that another idea crossed Matilda Jones' mind, one that was probably crazy enough to work. She tapped her finger against the table hard enough to get the attention of the other occupants.
"How about getting a ship girl involved? If we think the Lt is pushing himself way too far, maybe a ship girl will be able to reach him and talk some sense into him. Get him to ease up some." She noticed that everyone at the table was now looking at her very intently.
Matilda took a moment to push down her sudden unease and explain her reasoning for the idea. "I mean I've heard from the grapevine that's what happened with Admiral Richardson and Battleship Hiei. So it's worth a shot right?" She spoke with a somewhat unsure voice now that she said the reasoning for the idea aloud.
Clayton looked at her for a few moments as he thought it over before he grinned slightly. "That could work, it'd probably be a last resort, but it could very well work. Though the big question then is
who would have the best chance of reaching through to him
?" The Gunnery Sergeant as he rubbed the faint stubble of his chin.
They'd go on for almost another hour discussing which ship girl stationed currently in the Gulf would have the best chance of talking sense into the Lieutenant.
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Private First Class Lisa Ellen was at the base's main supply depot. Picking up replacements for the medical supplies she had used to treat the wounded dogs of Squadron 3. She was still a bit shocked that of the amount of medical supplies she had used, two thirds of it had gone into patching up PT-41 alone.
She wasn't alone at the Supply Sergeant's desk, PFC Sandbar and WA-5 Sanderson where there with her. Though she knew they were making a run at picking up damage control tools and supplies to help Desmond and Lake with repairing Squadron 3's damaged rigging vests.
Yet despite their presence, she still felt fairly alone. Especially as she thought back to earlier in the day, when she and the lieutenant were working on Squadron 3, when she swore she saw William's eyes turn a pale yellow color for a brief moment.
Lisa shuddered as the image of the Lieutenant's eyes in that moment came to the forefront of her mind. Had she really seen that? Was it just a trick of the lighting in the room? Or perhaps it was a result of the stress she was under making her see things? She wasn't sure and that worried her greatly.
Ellen jolted when she felt someone touch her shoulder, whipping her head around she saw that it was PFC Sandbar. "Lisa, are you alright there? You look like something's weighing down on ya something fierce." Sandbar said with a worried tone.
Ellen sighed and looked to her feet briefly before she looked up and met Raphael's eyes. "I'm just thinking about PT-41. I'm wondering if she's gonna be okay…" She trailed off before sighing.
"I've never seen a PT Corgi so damaged before. Honestly, there were a few points where I thought I was gonna lose her." While what she said wasn't a lie, However it wasn't what was really bothering her either.
Sandbar gave Ellen a small squeeze on the shoulder and a reassuring smile. "Well Ellen, you saved 41 in the end. You and the Lieutenant both did."
Ellen was at a loss of words for a few moments before then gave Raphael a small smile. "Yeah we did. I just hope the Lt's gonna be alright from all of this. I mean if I didn't know any better, I'd say that he treats those dogs as though they were his daughters." Ellen said a bit jokingly. Sandbar chuckled at the remark.
However, Sanderson looked at the two marines with a somewhat impassive expression on his face. "Actually Lisa, you aren't far off the mark there. I mean the dogs have more or less adopted him as their collective dad boat."
Upon hearing Sanderson's remark, Ellen and Sandbar's quiet chuckles died in their throats. An expression of disbelief crossed Sandbar's face, while an expression of terror crossed Ellen's face.
Sanderson rubbed his temples with one hand and sighed. "This means like any father, he's going to do his damned best to find where the responsible party for hurting his girls has gone off to and well, do what you'd expect an angry dad to do."
"Oh hell…" Sandbar muttered quietly. Ellen on the other hand began to faintly tremble with fear as she finally realized what that other emotion was she had seen in William's eyes. It was a determined and completely focused
wrath.
Her realization was doubly confirmed when Sanderson spoke again. "So the sooner we can get Squadron 3 back to full operational status. The sooner William's wrath will settle down." Sanderson spoke with a degree of resignation in his voice.
"In the meantime, I suggest you let the dogs or Clayton try handling William directly." The WA-5 cautioned the PFC's before the supply Sergeant returned with two other people carrying various boxes of supplies.
Sanderson and Sandbar loaded up the tools and various other supplies onto a dolly they brought with them before they departed to the equipment and maintenance building. Ellen grabbed the small crate of assorted medical supplies and started carrying it towards the repair docks. She had a patient to check up on after all and it'd save her making a couple trips between the Barracks building and the repair docks if she brought this crate with her to the docks.
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When Lieutenant William Corgi entered the PT boat barracks, he didn't find anyone there besides the dogs of the day patrols. He briefly gave them some head pats before he went off to shower.
After he came out, dried off and got dressed again; William then went about completely stripping down and cleaning both of his pistols. He didn't need anything in either weapon to corrode or jam after all. It didn't take long for him to complete the task, though he did place the Desert Eagle and its accessories back inside its custom pelican case before putting the case back up.
With the task done, William left his quarters and stepped out into the Barracks proper. When he noticed that no one had returned to the barracks yet, he headed to his office and stepped inside.
He saw waiting for him on his desk was a somewhat sizable amount of paperwork. A closer inspection revealed that it was post-patrol and post-battle reports. Further inspection revealed that some of the reports were from squadron 3, while other reports were from the Shipgirls that had sortied to cover Squadron 3's retreat.
The rest others were from the patrols that had sortied and returned while he had been with Squadron 3 at the repair docks. A small smile tugged at the corners of William's lips, Jim must have been the one who collected all of these reports and sorted them out by type if the sticky notes on the side of the stack with the Gunny's fluid cursive handwriting were any indication.
William sighed as he sat down at his desk, though before he grabbed the first report off of the pile and started reading it. He heard his stomach growl. "Right, I haven't eaten anything all day." He quietly muttered to himself as he opened up one of his desk drawers and pulled out a protein bar.
After tearing the package open and taking a few hearty bites out of the bar, he briefly paused with an amused smirk on his face after swallowing. "Well Clayton, I guess I can say I'm glad you insisted that I keep a box of these in one of my desk drawers." William quietly said before he finished off the protein bar and tossed the wrapper into the small garbage can he kept in his office.
Now with his rumbling stomach taken care of, William plucked the first sheet of paper off of the pile and began reading the post-battle reports. However as he read them, a realization started to dawn on him.
A realization that some of the mine laying forces, and even possibly some of what was escorting them had escaped. By the time he had gotten to the last post-battle report, Atago's. He was thoroughly convinced that some of the Abyssal forces had escaped.
The mere thought of some of the bastards responsible for hurting his dogs, responsible for laying the mines that had claimed over three dozen lives during the past week; had escaped their
deserved execution. It made the Lieutenant's blood
boil with anger.
He finished reading the last of the post-battle reports and before he opened up the central drawer of his desk. Looking around briefly, he pulled out a box of specially colored and marked push-pins as well as a few spools of colored string.
Carefully placing the post-battle reports in a separate pile from the rest of the reports on his desk, William took the pins and string and walked over to the wall mounted map board and placed them down on top of a filing cabinet.
He then took a picture of the map with his phone before he grabbed a small empty cardboard box that was sitting in one of the spare chairs and cleared off all the existing pins on the map.
With the map now clear, he walked back to his desk and picked up the stack of post battle reports before returning to the map. He then began the tedious process of marking down with pins where what was located, and marking down their directions of travel with the colored strings.
William color-coded the pins and strings to represent abyssal ships, ship girls, abyssal fast attack boats and the dogs.
After a good ten minutes, he could visually see that there was at least two sizable gaps were minelayers or their escorts could have broken off contact and slipped away in the night.
However, William knew that just because there was two possible ways for some of the enemy to have broken contact and escape, didn't mean that any had. Though he just couldn't dismiss the suspicion that some had indeed escaped.
For he suspected the amount of minelayers that were sunk didn't match up to the number required to equal the rate at which the number of mines had been increasing in the days prior to what happened last night.
As William stared at the map he felt his anger slowly rising more and more until it stuck a critical point. Where then his anger transformed from a hot fiery rage to a cold methodical fury.
They might have hurt the abyssal bastards, but they failed to kill em all. He rightfully feared that the next time this particular force was encountered again; it'd be stronger than before.
"Not unless we find and sink the bastards before they have a chance to recover first that is." William muttered quietly to himself.
After a few minutes of silently thinking and fuming on the matter, William walked back to his desk to go through the patrol reports and write up their respective comprehensive reports. He also filed requests to get copies of the patrol reports written by the various helicopter and fighter jet pilots that were sortied last night.
He was
certain that there were survivors of the Abyssal force that had been mining the region, and neither Hell nor high water was going to stop him from finding out where they could have possibly went to hide. And he silently swore to himself that when he found them, he'd do everything possible at his rank to see to it that those Abyssals were
sunk.
"
None of you bastards will escape your execution." William quietly said to himself with a voice so full of cold fury that if there was another soul in his office at that moment. They would have sworn the room fell a full five degrees in temperature.
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