Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

START OF ACT II

12 days later…

27^th June 2024, Day 45

1030

Conference Room, Joint NATO-Azur Lane Base Bembridge

Over the past six years, the commanders of Azur Lane have become accustomed to meeting with NATO officials. This has been a regular occurrence for them since their establishment. Azur Lane works with various governments and alliances worldwide, regardless of ideology, to ensure secure sea lanes and eliminate the threat of Sirens. However, since more than half of Azur Lane's members come from countries that are NATO members, it has drawn criticism from countries that are not in favour of NATO. Despite this, Azur Lane's main goal is to eliminate the Siren threat, and the United Nations is mindful of this. Therefore, it has been relatively smooth sailing for Azur Lane over the last six years, as they have autonomy over everyone.

But back then, Sirens was the big threat. And with that threat now neutralised, the balance of power suddenly began to shift. This was the cruel reality that Griggs, Reinald, Winfried, Eloisa and the newly appointed Commander of the Royal Navy, Tyler, were about to learn. And so, as they sat in the conference room with their secretarial shipgirls, they, especially the shipgirls, were about to receive a lesson in how the world really works.

“Hey, how’s the job going so far?” Griggs asked Tyler, who was seated next to him.

“Ah, nothing but putting out one dumpster fire after another. Problem here, problem there, it’s like I just got promoted to captain the Titanic when the ship’s halfway underwater and were tasked to get the whole blasted ship afloat back you know.” Tyler replied.

“So…did you manage to sort it out?” Reinald asked him.

“Kinda. There’s still some serious issues to deal with, but for now I focused on getting everything running again. Wasn’t exactly a smooth ride but at least there’s something.” At the same time, his newly appointed secretary shipgirl, Belfast were questioned by the other secretarial shipgirls.

“Bel, are you sure you’re okay with this?” Enterprise asked her.

“Yes, I can manage. It’s not the first time that I’ve became a secretary.”

“But, wouldn’t it interfere with your duty as the head maid?” Prinz Heinrich queried.

“Not anymore.”

“Huh?”

“Back then, I could do both jobs simultaneously. No problem. But after all that I went through, when Tyler decided to have me as a secretary, I chose to hand that responsibility back to Newcastle so I can just focus on this one.”

“So, you’re not the head maid anymore. But then, are you still a maid?”

“Yes. Head maid or not, I’m still part of the Royal Maids, and given that we’ve lost quite a number of us in the outbreak, every maid counts. Though for now, I may only serve Tyler for a time being.”

“If that’s the case, then why are she here?” Jean Bart glances at King George V, who sits nearby. The Royal battleship maintained a rather deadpanned face and didn’t even interact with anyone ever since she arrived with Tyler and Belfast.

“Oh, that was because Gayle asked Tyler to bring her with us. She’s the only remaining person from the previous administration that was still alive so she knows what happened when Harland was still in charge.” Belfast replied, wincing at the mention of Harland’s name. The passing of her previous commander left a mark on her, especially due to the circumstances involved.

“Ah, make sense. Must be some things that NATO here, wanted to disclose.” Trieste responded. “By the way, was she always acting like this?” She spoke noting George’s passive behaviour, a far cry from what she used to be.

“Can’t say anything much. If I went through the same thing as her, I would probably do the same.”

“That’s not a positive behaviour.” Enterprise noted.

“I know, but for now we let her do what she wants so long as she didn’t try to harm herself.” Just then, the NATO officers entered the room, Gayle trailing along them. The shipgirls went back to their seats, next to their commanders just as the officers took their seats as well. Gayle took his seat before he finally spoke.

“Well ladies and gentlemen, before we start this strategic meeting, I would like to congratulate Tyler Hackett here, for his promotion as the commander for the Azur Lane’s Royal Navy.” His words was followed by a light applause.

“Thanks for the applause, General. But I would like to have this meeting start sooner, I still have things to do on my end.”

“Of course. Now, to our main agenda for today…” And so the meeting continued uneventfully for the next half an hour until they began to touch about the Infected.

“And as you all can see; this is a footage taken only four days ago from one of our drones.” Gayle is speaking while showing footage of a single Infected wandering the streets just after sunset. It is clear that this Infected was once a bellboy, judging by his bloodied clothes. However, upon closer inspection, anyone could notice that something was not quite right with him.

“Hey, is it me, or this guy looked so skinny?” An officer in the room asked about a malnourished Infected that looks like he’s in his mid-20s who suddenly collapsed.

“What the hell is going on here?” Griggs asked. Gayle only shook his head as he opened more footage.

“Not just this one, we also had additional footages similar to this over the past 48 hours.” He says as he showed more of these footages, all of it showing a skinny Infected wandering around before suddenly collapsing and never rise up again. After showing the last footage, he finally spoke. “After looking at all these footages, it was clear to us that the Infected were dying out by themselves. Starvation seems to be the cause. Which means if this continues, expect the last Infected in Great Britain to die by themselves in about six months.”

“If so, what is the problem?” Trieste asked. Gayle only stared at her before replying.

“That’s because of this.” He then proceeds to play another footage. This time, the commanders and shipgirls, especially Griggs and Enterprise, winced as the footage showed a shipgirl with her rigging equipped wandering around the streets.

“Holy shit, that’s Maryland.” Enterprise was shocked as she saw the Colorado-class battleship on the screen. The footage wasn't very clear, but she could see that it was damaged. The turrets were missing barrels, the radar was snapped, and there were many dents all over the rigging. And it was also covered in blood. Maryland was also in bad shape. Her ponytail was undone, and her clothes were torn and bloodstained in some places.

“When was this footage taken?” Griggs shot a question at Gayle, his face a mix of sad, disgust, and concerned.

“About nine days ago, near Dalston. We were about to take her out but she then ran away, and we couldn’t locate her ever since.”

“And what kind of problem does she cause?” He asked again, and Gayle looked at him and the Azur Lane commanders and shipgirls present in the room, which made a few of them feel uncomfortable with his look.

“Oh no, Maryland is just a fraction of the problem. There’s more.” Gayle then brought up additional photographs showing several more Infected Azur Lane shipgirls that their drone was able to take. “Now, this is Eagle. This one is Scharnhorst, Penelope, South Dakota, Grenville, Hardy, Hunter…In short, there’s still Infected shipgirls that were still around in the city, and these are the ones we managed to locate. There might be more, still hiding out of sight.” Gayle paused for a moment before continuing.

“And as you’ve noticed from all these footages, while the other Infected were slowly dying from weeks of starvation, these shipgirls did not.” Murmurs began to sound in the conference room as everyone began to discuss the implications of this discovery. Nevertheless, Gayle continued. “And this unsettling discovery were going to impact our plans in the upcoming weeks.”

“Weeks?” Eloisa asked.

“That’s right. Given what we’ve learned about them Infected, our original plan was to wait a few more weeks, maybe until the middle of September, when the last of the Infected finally starved themselves to death, then we move in and began clean-up operations.” Gayle answered her question. “But unfortunately, the European Union had other ideas.”

“What kind of ideas?” Questioned Reinald.

“The EU, they demanded that London is to be ready for re-population by at least the second week of August.” Gayle’s statement shocked everyone.

“Wait, what!? That early!? Does this EU guys even know what is going on down there!?” Jean Bart exclaimed.

“That’s the thing. They’ve been pressuring us about the possibilities that London can be repopulated since last week. We initially gave them September or October at best. But then they decided that September was too long and requested August as the earliest month to begin re-population effort.”

“Can’t you at least negotiate with them? Tell them that we need more time?” Griggs asked.

“We are trying, Commander Griggs. Besides, had these Infected shipgirls not been a problem, we could have already begun the Infected extermination campaign right away. They’re clearly weakened by now that we can send in ground units and start exterminating them. But with those ISG’s still running around, that’s a risk we cannot take. And that’s where we need your shipgirls.” Gayle’s statement made both the Azur Lane commanders and shipgirls gulp. Whatever they just heard, was not going to be a pretty one.

“And exactly what and how are we’re supposed to help?” Prinz Heinrich asked, her voice already reflecting what the other shipgirls in the room was thinking. Gayle can see the dread in their faces and spoke again.

“Trust me, we understand that your experiences in London was awful, and we acknowledge that. But these ISGs were surprisingly smart enough to dodge our traps.”

“Traps?” Eloisa asked.

“Thanks to the operation to rescue London a while back, we knew exactly what was needed to take down an ISG. And since she mentioned detecting signals, we know that shipgirls emit certain signals which can be detected by other shipgirls.” Gayle answered her.

“And from that, we deduced that by artificially creating a signal of a similar wavelength, we can lure the ISGs out from hiding, and then take them down without the need to risk any of you.” A NATO officer spoke. “And thanks to a few cooperating shipgirls, we were able to create such a signal and they said they were able to detect it.”

“Let me guess, you guys created an artificial signal generator designed to produce the kind of signal we emit. Right?” Said Jean Bart.

“Correct. Three days ago, we dropped a few of these generators near the parks and squares hoping that the ISGs would be attracted to it. But unfortunately, it wasn’t the case. None of the ISG took the bait. Which made us conclude that the only way to force them out was to have an actual shipgirl down there.”

“And that means we have no other choice but to deploy some of you shipgirls back on the streets.” Gayle finished the officer’s words. The shipgirls only looked at one another with uncertainty. Their commanders too were disbelieved with the facts.

“Is this the only option available?” Reinald inquired.

“Unfortunately, given that these ISGs were smart enough not to fall to our bait, yes.”

“Shit,” Griggs muttered under his breath. Eloisa and Winfried both showed their discomfort which confused Taylor.

“Uh, you guys got a problem with that?” He asked them, earning Taylor glares of disbelief from both the other commanders and the shipgirls, even Belfast.

“Wow, you have guts to ask that question considering HALF the shipgirls from your faction died there.” Jean Bart answered sarcastically.

“Umm, Taylor? You did read the report regarding what happened back then, did you?” Eloisa asked him. “I read that report earlier. Seriously, I have chills remembering what the report says and I still couldn’t imagine all the horrors you all have to face. Just knowing it makes me think twice before even letting any of my girls anywhere in London right now.”

“I know, I read that as well! Just seeing all of you reacting like that was a bit unbecoming for all of you. Are you all seriously getting cold feet from that?” Before the argument can go any further, Gayle shuts it down.

“Hey, calm down everyone! We’re not here to listen to your squabbles, right now we have a problem and we need to solve it ASAP!” Gayle slams his hand on the desk to make his point, silencing everyone. After letting things calm down a bit he spoke again. “Now, everyone’s good? Then let’s get back to business because what we were going to discuss next still had something to do with the Azur Lane, particularly with the Royal Navy.” The moment he mentioned it, everyone’s attention went back to the projector display.

“Now, as you all have read in the report, the Azur Lane Royal Navy suffered from a communication breakdown thanks to no part from the interference of their higher-ups in the Admiralty which led to the biggest loss of life the Azur Lane had to face…” At first, the commanders and shipgirls treated the information as just another fact that they had to swallow. “A fortnight ago, a small team of Spec Ops unit were sent in to retrieve the files contained within the British Ministry of Defence servers to look for pieces of evidence supporting these claims. And indeed, we’ve found enough of it to conclude that the Admiralty purposely sabotaged their communication network, which led to the disaster.”

“Good grief, all that just to get us here.” Jean Bart whispered under her breath.

“But when we analyzed the files, we realized that we had found more than just the evidence. It turned out that both sides had something to do with it.” Gayle spoke while eyeing King George V. The battleship slowly became nervous, which was noticed by Eloisa, Trieste, and Belfast.

“George? Are you alright?” Belfast asked her.

“I…I’m fine…” George replied.

“But why are you sweating though?” Trieste asked. “The AC’s on.” Before King George V can answer, Gayle asks her first.

“George?”

“Yes general?”

“In the months before the outbreak, did Harland have a closed-door meeting with British Army officers or their equivalent in the Navy and the Royal Air Force?” He questions her. Eyes began to turn on the battleship as she tried to answer Gayle’s question.

“What the hell does that mean?” Griggs asked, confused by the general’s question. But George answered Gayle’s question.

“Y-yes.”

“How many times did he have this meeting?”

“I…I don’t know, I have only been in it a few times. But he’s been meeting with them a lot. Since mid-February this year. The last meeting was only a week before the outbreak.” Now with the facts known, the other commanders and shipgirls began to have concerned looks on their faces. Meetings with Navy officers were certain for them, but the Army and the Air Force butting in when they weren’t needed was something of a concern.

“Can you tell us what exactly they discuss in those meetings that you can tell us?” This time, George didn’t answer. Instead, she only averted her eyes from seeing anyone and simply stared at the floor.

“General, what is going on right now? What was with those questions you asked her? You’re making her uncomfortable!” It was Prinz Heinrich that now asking the question to Gayle while looking at George, the former Royal Navy secretary being comforted by Eloisa, Enterprise, and Reinald. Seeing her being rattled that much also had made her and the other commanders and shipgirls feel uneasy.

“Well, guess we have to explain it to you then,” Gayle spoke as he navigated through the files on the computer. “As we said earlier, the files we found on the drives taken from the Ministry contain more than just the evidence. Turns out, it contains some things that are going to shock all of you, for what it contains concerns not just Azur Lane but also us as well. Which may explain why the Royal Navy went silent that day.” He finally opened a new slide, which now displays a specification sheet on the screen.

“George, are you familiar with this thing?” Gayle asked George again, the battleship looked up and stared at the screen; what she saw made her pupils dilate. The commanders and other shipgirls also looked at the screen and they too were surprised at what was being displayed.

“Wait, what the hell’s that?” Griggs asked, staring at the screen. Jean Bart took a glance at it and immediately noticed something.

“It looks like, a shipgirl rigging? But I’ve never seen anything like that before.” The battleship spoke.

“Rigging? But what kind of rigging is that?” Enterprise asked, but Jean only shrugged.

“Hell do I know!? It looked kinda small, destroyer maybe? Or probably light cruiser at best.”

“But there’s no guns or whatsoever on it, only empty holes like something were supposed to be placed in it. Just what was this? Trieste asked the same thing. Meanwhile, the commanders too were perplexed at just what was on the screen.

“General, what is this thing that you were showing to us?” Winfried asked.

“Good question. Because it turns out, this was one of the reasons why the British tried to keep the Royal Navy from talking too much.” Gayle spoke, before looking at George again. “So I am asking you, George, do you know what is this thing?” The general asked George again. She remained silent at first. Then, without looking at him, George answered the question.

“Y-yes.” Her answer was a shock for the commanders and other shipgirls alike.

“WHAT!?” Prinz Heinrich, Jean Bart, Trieste, Griggs, Reinald and Tyler all reacted, shock colouring their faces.

"Then can you have a word with us about what exactly this thing is?" Gayle asked her again. The answer George gave was something none of them had ever considered before, not until the Rage Virus incident.

“It’s…it’s a land rig prototype. Meant to allow shipgirls to be used as weapons platform on land.” The other shipgirls and commanders were left speechless, the news of this unforeseen development must have got through to them. They all looked at Tyler and Belfast, who realised they were being watched, and Tyler raised his arms.

“Wait, before any of you say anything, both of us had no idea about this prototype rigging.” He spoke. Belfast only nods in agreement. Griggs then turned his attention back to King George V and asked her a question.

“George, just be honest; exactly how long did the Royal Navy or your government have this rigging under development?”

“We started it, about a few months back. In February or March, I think.”

“God damn, that’s fast.” Jean Bart replied.

“Of course, the British were able to quickly develop this…land-rig because it wasn’t their original idea,” Gayle spoke again, catching their attention.

“What do you mean, not their original idea general?” Winfried asked.

“Because the British copied someone else’s homework and changed things a little.” He replied as he moved on to the next slide. “This is where they copied it.” The slide changes to reveal another specification sheet showing a similar land-rig, but right off the bat they something different with it.

“Wait, what?” Eloisa reacted. Winfried however, took a glance at the new slide and his face paled especially when he read the words written on it.

“Universal'naya nazemnaya boyevaya platforma Korabl'-devushka…Russian?”

“You know how to read Russian, Winfried?” Reinald asked in confusion.

"Who do you think I am? Where I was born was once called East Germany, you know? But more importantly, General, what was that thing doing here?"

“That’s the thing, because somehow, the Royal Navy had years’ worth of intel on what Russia was doing with their shipgirls, and turns out, we lost,” Gayle replied before opening a video. “While we’re still busy fighting the Sirens, Russia already started making moves on utilizing shipgirls to fight on land. Now, watch this footage, and pay attention to the date.” The video plays and everyone can see a shipgirl standing in front of a tank.

“Wait, who was that girl? I’m not familiar with the Russians since I didn’t see them a lot.” Griggs asked.

“I think that was Kursk, I met her a few times before.” Prinz Heinrich answered him. They continued to watch the test footage.

“Hey, is the tank is in position?” Kursk asked on the radio.

“Yeah, we got it in parked, it’s not moving anywhere.” A voice replied, probably the tank commander.

“Okay, I’m going to place my rig on your tank,” Kursk replied as she summoned her rigging.

“Ah, hold on. Let me turn the turret first.” Someone replied just as the turret began to turn to the right.

“Why didn’t you turn the turret earlier, dumbass!?”

“I thought she just gonna stand in front of the tank!”

“Cut the chatter, we need to start the experiment.” Another voice came through, silencing the arguing tankers. “Kursk, are you ready?”

“Ready whenever everyone’s ready.”

“Kursk? We’re good.”

“Okay, hold on a second.” Kursk carefully positioned her rigging on top of the tank's front armour, slowly lowering it down. However, the weight of the rig began to push the tank into the ground.

“Oh damn, look at that.” Someone spoke. “She just managed to move the tank just by putting that thing on.”

“Hey, you guys good in there?”

“We’re good, we’re good! But we can feel the tank getting pushed!”

“We’re already starting?”

“Not yet, I’m still positioning my rig,” Kursk replied.

“Damn, we can feel the whole damned tank shifting!” All the while, they watched the footage and wondered if that even worked given how big Kursk’s rigging was.

“Do any of you even think that tank can handle the recoil?” Enterprise asked.

“Given the size of that rig, I say it won’t,” Winfried replied. Trieste meanwhile, noticed the date the video was recorded.

“Damn, this video’s old.” She spoke.

“It did?” Reinald asked.

“Just look at the date. It’s from three years ago.” The others looked at the date shown in the lower left part of the video.

“24^th February 2021…damn, they tried firing shipgirls on land when everyone’s still fighting Sirens?” Jean Bart spoke.

“Huh…guess the Russians were already ahead of us in that department,” Winfried replied.

“The Russians have been trying it since November 2020. I just showed this one because this one was, by far, their most outlandish attempt.” Gayle spoke. “Now just watch what happens next.” They watched the footage again just as Kursk announced that she was going to fire her guns.

“Get ready, I’m going to fire my guns!”

“We’re set!”

“All units standby, get ready for all possibilities.”

“Guns firing in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Firing!” Kursk shouted before firing her weapons. And she was instantly knocked to the ground. Loud sounds of metal grinding and screeching followed as dust, dirt and smoke filled the area.

“Holy shit!” Griggs shouted.

“Called it.” Jean Bart spoke, already knowing the outcome of said event just by looking at it. Meanwhile, on the video, soldiers rushed in as they tried to see what was going on.

“Hey girl, are you okay!?” One of them asked Kursk, who was struggling to get back on her feet after she was thrown backwards from the recoil.

“I’m…fine. Go check the guys in the tank.” Kursk replied as a soldier helped her to her feet. The cameraman then turned to his right and saw what had just happened to the tank. As he did so, the tank crew staggered out of their vehicle, shaken by the impact.

“Hey comrade, are you okay?”

“Oh…I’m fine…but the damn thing shakes like hell’s opening up under us!” One of them spoke, so the other soldier decided to have a look at the tank, and was immediately startled by what he saw.

“God-damned right that hell opened up under us, just look at that!” "He shouted as he pointed his finger towards the spot where the tank had originally been parked. The force of the recoil had pushed the tank several meters back, carving a trail on the ground. Everyone's eyes followed the trail to the tank, which was now completely wrecked."

“Oh, damn! The tracks all fucked!” The cameraman shouted, focusing his camera on the tank’s broken thread.

“Not just that. Shit, the front armour’s busted!” One of the soldiers indicated towards the front of the tank, which had a large dent as if it had been hit by a huge hammer. Considering the extent of the damage inflicted by Kursk, it would be more economical to scrap the tank and construct a new one.

“Well, at least that tank ain’t gonna fight no more,” Griggs commented.

“But still, having these footages had proven that the Russians had faced the same problem as all of you did, three years ago,” Gayle spoke as he brought up even more footage of Northern Parliament shipgirls getting tossed around shooting their rigging on land. “And naturally, they also came up with the same solution we also used. Again, three years ago.” He continued as he brought up pictures of Northern Parliament shipgirls using modified riggings similar to what they were also used alongside other footage and photos of them practising firearms and other combat techniques.

“Damn, those Russkies were dead serious about teaching their girls how to kill,” Griggs muttered. “And all this time we thought they’re doing it just to show off.”

“Commander, technically we also did the same,” Enterprise replied.

“They’re different, Enterprise. Yours are out of your rights to bear arms. From the way I see it, these girls were being groomed to be part of the Russian military.” Winfried replied. “I mean, look at that. They even strapped RPGs on their rigging. We only used machine guns because we are supposed to fight the Infected, you only need RPGs when you need to take out a tank, and the Infected doesn’t use tanks as far as I know.” He said upon seeing the picture of Soobrazitelny having RGP-7s installed in the same manner as the machineguns used on their riggings. Winfried then asked Gayle.

“And I assumed that the Russians started to develop that land rig you are showing to us just now, was it?”

“Correct,” Gayle answered as he opened up another video footage. “But for a time being, the Russians stopped experimenting altogether as after that experimentation with crudely-installed gun, there weren’t any new developments for a while as there were no photographs, videos nor any form of documentation between that until this one. We assumed that they had decided to focus on fighting the Sirens before any further development. But from this footage, we figured that development was simply slowed down to prioritize anti-Siren technologies first. Once the Sirens were defeated, development resumed.” Another video was shown, this time they can see a shipgirl donning the land rig as she aims her weapon at a distant target.

“That…was Voroshilov, wasn’t it?” Belfast pointed out at the blue-haired girl, who was standing on the video while soldiers were loading missiles on her rigging.

“It is her, I recognized that hair. We often met her on patrols in the Baltics.” Heinrich answered. She then looked at the rigging Voroshilov was using. She could see some sort of gun attached to her right, but to her left was something that looked like a launcher of some sort. “Are those missiles on her rigging?”

“Yeah, a Spriggen to be exact. Those things can take out any of our tanks if you’re not careful.” A NATO officer answers her question. She don’t know what he meant by “Spriggen”, but she assumed it was the name of the missiles Voroshilov was using. Then they heard someone shout in the background.

“Anti-tank missile test commencing in 5…4…3…2…1…FIRE!” When ordered, Voroshilov fired a barrage of 9M133M Kornet-M missiles towards a distant target, an old Soviet-era T-62 tank. Her rigging shook as the missiles were launched, leaving a trail of smoke behind them. An explosion could be observed in the distance as the missiles hit and successfully destroyed the target.

“Target destroyed,” Voroshilov spoke on the radio.

“Roger. Proceed to gunnery practice.”

“Understood.” Then the gun to her right began to move as she aimed at the target positioned nearby before Voroshilov began to fire. Her rigging shook with each shot, but unlike firing their main guns, this time the recoil was far more controllable, something any shipgirl can manage.

“Woah, she’s killing it!” Griggs exclaimed as he watched Voroshilov wiping out her targets one by one. He then glanced at the date the video was taken and it startled. “Hey guys, check out what date this video’s taken.” Eyes went for the lower left where the date and time were displayed.

“That’s…last year’s Christmas…” Trieste blurted.

“Wait, I thought she went to that party,” Heinrich replied.

“If I recall correctly, there’s only five Northern Parliament shipgirls that attended last year’s Christmas.” Winfried spoke. “And if you asked why I know there’s only five? Well, we send out RSVPs to everyone that wants to attend, and only five of those invites was from the Northern Parliament.”

“Does Ilyas attends that party?” Eloisa asked him. Winfried only rolls his eyes before replying back.

“Absent as usual. You should know that already about his attitude.”

“Ah…okay. Anyway, exactly who came?”

“Chapayev, Ognevoy, Volga, Gangut, and Tallinn. Just those girls.”

“Yeah, I can confirm that Chapayev does attend that party,” Griggs spoke sheepishly.

“Alright Griggs, we don’t want to know about your interracial orgy. The fact that you managed to convince Saint Louis to join you was something.” Reinald spoke.

“She’s dead-ass drunk at the time. Go figure it out.”

“Okay, great. While we all got smashed that day, these girls went out shooting guns and missiles with experimental technology that we only know today. What else do they have in store?” Jean Bart asked.

“What else? These things were made to be modular.” Gayle answered as he moved on to the next slides, which detailed several more specification sheets. “From what we can discern, the riggings came in three sizes: small, medium, and large. Small was for destroyers, medium was for light and heavy cruisers, and large was for large cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships. Each size came with mounted machine guns on each side, and can load up the five modules depending on size.”

“Modules?” Tyler asked.

“Yes, the modules were to be installed on the rigging. These are what that we can identify.” Gayle changed the slides yet again, and now it shows some of the modules. “30mm autocannon, anti-tank missile launcher, anti-air missile launcher, automatic grenade launcher, rocket pods, and even automatic mortar system. It even came with a built-in active protection system. In case you all haven’t noticed; all of these were geared for conventional warfare, the same weapon systems employed by the Russian Armed Forces. So far, we see them testing these weapons out. Want to know what is like to see them in actual combat?” The general then opened another video.

“This was taken on 19^th June, only nine days ago.” He spoke as the video began to play. They can now see a shipgirl peeking out from an intersection as gunfire and explosions fill the air. Shouts in Russian and Arabic can be heard as well, and so does the screams.

“Well I’ll be damned, that’s Kronshtadt!” Winfried exclaimed. They can see the large cruiser peeking out a bit from the corner before stepping out and launching a salvo of rockets towards an apartment, the camera switching focus to the building as the rockets hit them, destroying parts of the building.

“Oh shit, what the hell!?” Enterprise reacted, seeing Kronshtadt blowing up an entire structure like it was natural to her. The next thing she saw, was Kronshtadt firing her autocannon in a short burst in the same direction where she launched her rockets just earlier.

“Exactly who or what is she’s shooting at?” Heinrich asked.

“She’s laying down covering fire, to keep the enemy from firing back so friendly units can get to their position.” Someone answered her. Just then, a tank rolled beside her into the intersection before stopping and firing its cannon. All the while, soldiers were seen running past them, using the tank as cover to get to the other side of the street.

“Allahu Akbar!” The cameraman shouted.

“Hey, we should move up!” Someone spoke to the cameraman.

“Ok, let’s go!” He replied as he grabbed his weapon and ran alongside his friend towards where the other soldiers were.

“Exactly where was this video taken?” Reinald asked Gayle.

“According to our sources, this was taken in Deir ez-Zur in Syria. About two weeks ago, a Russian-led coalition launched an attack on the city to recapture it from the Islamic State of Iraq, and it was part of a larger offensive in Syria that has been going on for almost two months now. They succeeded in capturing the city about a week ago.” He answered.

“A week ago? How come we didn’t even know about it?” Griggs asked.

“Because the same week Russia launched the offensive, was also the same week when the Rage Virus began to spread. You have yet another war in the Middle East and an actual zombie apocalypse in Great Britain. Guess which one sells news faster. Western media only started to pick it up a fortnight ago, but Russian and Iranian media focuses more on Syria than Great Britain. Which is why we had more footage, like this one, just a day before.” Gayle opened another video, this time a bodycam of a Russian soldier as he and a few other soldiers rush to a shipgirl hiding next to a destroyed shop.

“Hey, we brought ammo!” He shouted.

“Ah, thanks! Was running low from having to ice these sandfuckers!” The shipgirl replied. An explosion then happened somewhere near them, sending dust and loose building parts falling from the shockwave. “Whatever, hurry up! Those mudaks are still nearby.” She spoke as she peeks around the corner. More gunfire was heard nearby forcing her to retreat.

“Fuck, that was close!”

“Hey Gromky, I can see you from here! You need help or something!?” Someone asked over the radio.

“Yeah, I’m having my rigging reloaded right now, they are still not done yet!”

“Thirty seconds! Just a bit more!” The soldier shouted at her.

“Doesn’t matter, we’re pushing there anyway. I cover you!” Someone ran up the street past the soldiers and Gromky, another shipgirl slid into the intersection before firing her autocannon down the road. After firing a short burst, she quickly retreated to the other side of the road, just as a rocket flew past her and hit the ground, the explosion sending dust and debris flying. As soon as it happened, the shipgirl went back into the street, firing a salvo of rockets in response.

“Enemy position destroyed! Push, push, push!” Someone shouted. Meanwhile, the soldiers finished reloading Gromky’s rigging.

“Hey, girl! Your rigging’s ready!”

“Thanks!” Gromky replied as she reattached her rigging back.  Just as she was ready to head down the road, the ground shook.

“Whoa! What was that!?” One of the soldiers asked. The ground shakes again as if something big is walking nearby towards them.

“Don’t worry, whatever that thing that was doing it, was friendly. It belongs to one of ours, I guarantee you that.” Gromky tried to assure the soldiers. Just then, a massive pair of claws appeared behind the buildings, startling those who were watching the video as a massive mechanical creature walked into view.

“What the fuck was that!?” Griggs exclaimed as they all saw the creature. They can see guns being fired from it, both from the claws as well as one gun turret just above the head. As it moves further into view they can also see what looks like a control cab and several launchers mounted on its back.

“That…looks like something we Iron Bloods have. But we never seen something like this with Northern Parliament girls. It’s even bigger than Eisen!” Heinrich spoke.

“Ain’t they also have riggings that’s just about the same size as some of yours?” Jean Bart asked her.

“They do, but they were almost always attached to their girls. This one is clearly free-roaming like Eisen does. So far there weren’t any shipgirls from them that have a rigging like that.”

“If so, then where’s her girl?” Trieste asked. Her questions were answered just as the video continued.

“What the!? Hey Moskva, watch it! You almost crushed me!” Someone yelled over the radio.

“Sorry, I can’t see you from up here.” Someone, presumably Moskva replied.

“Then watch where you’re going, you cocksucker!”

“Kuybyshev, how about you go fuck yourself then?”

“Hey girls, focus on the mission!” A male voice entered the scene, defusing their argument. And a voice that most commanders and shipgirls were able to recognize.

“Okay, that was Ilyas’s voice.” Griggs pointed out. Winfried however, had some thought for a moment before he asked Gayle.

“General, can you rewind the video to the part when that creature showed up? Raise the audio volume as well.” Gayle rewinds the video to the point Winfried had asked him and raised the volume a bit.

“This point, right?”

“Yes.” The video plays again, this time Winfried giving more attention to the conversation that follows. First, was Kuybyshev running into the intersection to provide covering fire. Then followed by her almost getting stepped upon by the mysterious mechanical being, and her reprimanding its owner for her recklessness.

“Chto za!? Ey, Moskva, smotri! Ty pochti razdavil menya!”

“Moskva?” Winfried reacted to the name he heard. “As far as I know, there is no shipgirl in the Northern Parliament that bears that name.”

“A new shipgirl, maybe? Perhaps a Priority Ship that they just developed?” Enterprise asked. Winfried however, disagreed with her.

“I don’t think so. General, play that video again.” The video resumes again as it shows the mechanical creature continuing to move forward until it can see its backside. “Alright, pause it.” Winfried takes another look at the launcher-like contraption lining its back.

“That doesn’t look like a torpedo to me. But it does remind me of…”

“Missile launch tubes, wasn’t it?” Gayle finished his words.

“Was about to say it, but yes.”

“Missiles, since when did shipgirls use missiles? I thought they’re confined to World War 2 and earlier techs?” Tyler asked.

“That was exactly what we in NATO used to think about you and your shipgirls,” Gayle spoke. “But let me help answer some questions that you might going to ask. It is true, that no ship bears the name Moskva in the Soviet Navy during World War 2, the timeline which the shipgirls were based upon. It might be a project ship that some of you managed to build as a Priority ships, but so far we know that the Northern Parliament only had one Priority ship at the moment and it wasn’t a cruiser. But if you push the timeline by fifty years, then there is one that matches.” The General then brings up a picture of a cruiser.

“Launched in 1983, this ship started its life as Slava and was the lead ship of her class of guided-missile cruisers, but after the breakup of the Soviet Union, she was renamed to Moskva in 1995. But here’s the kicker: Moskva was reported sunk in 2018, during the attempt to clear the waters between Europe and North America.”

“Operation Columbus…” King George V spoke, earning attention from the commanders and the shipgirls.

“Columbus?” Tyler asked.

“Yes. It was Azur Lane’s first multi-nation operation not long after it was established six years ago. The objective was to secure a safe passage from Europe to North America, so an armed convoy could be sent there. The Eagle Union could not have existed had the operation failed. At the time, there were just three factions in the Azur Lane, us Royal Navy, Iron Blood, and the Northern Parliament. All three factions went somewhere near Iceland to destroy a Siren that could pose danger to the convoy. Us Royals and Iron Blood went in alone, but the Northern Parliament, the Russians sent a few ships of their own to help out. Fifteen ships total, of which eight of them were sunk in the ensuing battle. Moskva, as I can recall was one of those ships the Russians lost.” George explained.

“I was also in that operation, so yes, she’s speaking the truth,” Belfast added.

“Wow, didn’t expect you girls to be able to remember those events that well. Moreso from six years ago and still remember it like yesterday.” Someone spoke.

“We shipgirls have a good memory, in addition to our history. We can remember everything, sir.” Belfast kindly replied.

“But, Moskva is a Cold War ship, wasn’t it? There is no way a shipgirl like that could be manifested through Wisdom Cubes.” Reinald pointed out.

“Or was it?” Gayle responded. “Maybe because there were conditions that are required to manifest them as shipgirls, something that Russians had just figured out.” He said as he opened a web browser and opened a website, the image loads and everyone was surprised to see what was on display.

“This was from a Russian social media website, as you can see, it was taken just a day before the Deir ez-Zur offensive. I think even without reading the comments, everyone was surprised to see it.” Indeed, the screen showed the Moskva, a warship that was supposed to have been sunk six years ago. Winfried took a glance at the comments and read them out.

“Wait, was that Moskva?” - Osip Kovalev

“The fuck!? My brother died on that ship six years ago! How it was supposed to be there!?” - Leontiy Tarasov

“They can afford to rebuild a sunken warship, but said they have no money to fix a bridge. Classic government moves everyone.” - Nikifor Kozlov

“What in God’s name was going on?” He spoke. “If George and Belfast were speaking the truth, how was Moskva still afloat like nothing bad had ever happened? General, how are you certain that this was a shipgirl to begin with?” Winfried asked him. Gayle only opened another tab on the browser.

“Because the person that posted the picture of Moskva, also posted this. Says that the ship shows up at Tartus without any crew onboard, except for this girl right here.” A picture of a girl standing next to the ship, someone none of the Azur Lane commanders or the shipgirls present in the room could recognise. The girl had waist-length grey hair that looked like it wasn’t kept and a pair of grey eyes. She wore a grey beret and an unbuttoned grey military jacket with a brown trim showing her white shirt, the few buttons near the top unbuttoned to reveal a telnyashka underneath, a knee-length grey skirt and a pair of brown boots. The number 121 could be seen on her shoulder. What caught their attention, however, was that devilish smile on her face, which made some of the shipgirls feel intimidated. Even a glance into her eyes told them that this girl was not to be messed with.

“Wow, she looks like she got a few screws loose.” Jean Bart remarked.

“I…don’t think so. There’s something’s off with her, I can feel it. She’s not someone that you should mess around with.” Trieste replied, her voice having a hint of fear in it.

“I agree with Trieste, her smile alone looks like she’s mocking us.” Enterprise added.

“Bah! You all got intimidated by a ship that was the size of a light cruiser? I can take it out with just one salvo of my guns.”

“That is if you can get in range first,” Gayle spoke. “Your guns have a maximum range of 41.7 kilometers with a muzzle velocity of 830 meters per second. Now see those tubes that cover half her hull?” He said as he brought up the picture of Moskva’s ship, circling the cursor around the tubes. “Those tubes house P-500 Bazalt anti-ship cruise missiles, known to us under its reporting name ‘Sandbox’. Now, try and guess it’s range.”

“Uh…40 kilometres?” Jean answered.

“Wrong.”

“150?”

“Wrong again.” This time, Jean began to sweat, yet she tries to guess again.

“200?”

"Try 550 kilometres." His reply shocked the pirate battleship. "13 times the range of your guns. And I almost forgot, this is a supersonic cruise missile. It travels at such a speed that it will cover that distance in less than six minutes. And at that range, she can see you long before you can. If you try to fight her, you'll be a wreck at the bottom of the ocean long before you even register what just hit you. And she have sixteen of those missiles. Moskva was made specifically to take down capital ships like you." Jean was speechless, finally realizing how much of a difference in power a ship built forty years after her could make. Meanwhile, Gayle opened another tab on the browser.

“And if you still weren’t convinced that this Moskva isn’t a shipgirl, this one will certainly do.” Now a photograph appeared on the screen, and once again they were in for a shock. The photo showed a group of soldiers posing in celebration of their successful capture of the city. They were holding up the flags of the countries involved in the operation, with the Syrian flag in the middle and the Russian and Iranian flags flanking the Syrian one. It looks normal to them until they focus on those holding the Russian flag. Among the soldiers were several Northern Parliament shipgirls, all dressed in the same desert EMR camouflage as the rest of the Russian soldiers in the photo holding the Russian flag. To top it off, right behind them was the mechanical monster they saw earlier, and as the photo was taken by a drone, they got a good look at it. They can make out the guns on its claws, the single gun on its head, the control cabin just behind it, and the four pairs of missile launch tubes straddling its back.

“Holy…! That damn thing’s massive!” Griggs pointed out.

“What was that, a scorpion?” Heinrich asked. She too found whatever that thing was just something she had never seen in her life. She had seen Friedrich’s and August’s dragon, Ulrich’s spider-like rig, and there was Eisen, her own mechanical companion. The closest she could think of was Roon’s Shrimpy, but Shrimpy looked small compared to this one.

“I don’t know, but it looks like something I’ve seen in a book before,” Eloisa answered her. Others focused on the shipgirls they could see posing in the photo.

“Look there, just next to that left-most guy.” Reinald points at the left side. “That’s Chapayev and Kuybyshev.”

“Not just them, there’s Gromky, Soobrazitelny, Kronshtadt, Chkalov, and of course this Moskva girl.” Winfried followed, eyeing the ruffled, grey-haired girl. “How in the world did the Russians manage to manifest a Cold War ship out?”

“That, we do not know. But we do have some other concerns with their other ships” Gayle answered as another video was opened for them to watch. It shows a rather large warship being out at sea. They noticed that there was another smaller screen at the top right of the video showing a decrepit ocean liner.

“Exactly what are we looking at? Wait, is that a battleship?” Reinald asked. “A battleship of that size…that had got to be a Sovetsky Soyuz-class.”

“You’re right, the caption here does say that it is Soyuz herself,” Winfried answered him, pointing out at the caption at the bottom right of the video.

“Oh, then what does it say?”

“It says…anti-ship missile test?” Just as Winfried reads it, a missile flies out from the aft deck. It went straight up at first until it was far above the ship, before turning horizontally and then the engine ignited, sending the missile flying away at blistering speed. “What in the goddamned…?” Not long after, the ocean liner in the smaller screen was impacted by the missile, setting off a massive explosion that covered the entire screen. When the smoke and fire settled what was left of the ship was seen sinking into the ocean.

“What the hell was that!?” Jean Bart shrieked.

“That was some kind of anti-ship missile, but damn that thing’s fast!” Someone remarked.

“Must be one of those new Russian anti-ship missiles, but…launching it out from the back of a battleship?” Another responded.

“Technically we also launched missiles off World War 2 battleships,” Griggs spoke.

“Indeed, we’ve done that quite a long time ago Griggs. I was there in Iraq when Mighty Mo and Big Whisky were around pounding the Iraqis to submission. But from what we’re seeing now, there are a couple things we have to say about you and the shipgirls in particular. Sit down, everyone.” He continued, but the tone of his voice certainly gave the commanders and shipgirls that they were in for a chewing. Nevertheless, they complied, sitting down on their seats while taking a deep breath ready to weather whatever Gayle had in his mind for them.

“You know, for all the time Azur Lane was active, we here at NATO don’t normally consider you as much of a threat given that every piece of tech you owned and operated was far behind any of us.” He started speaking. “But as of now, that perspective has changed.” Gayle brought up the files, photos, and videos he had shown to them.

“From all this evidence we’ve seen, it is clear that our rivals had already seen value in shipgirls as combatants now that the Sirens were taken care of, and they were actively pushing their research and development for such purposes. Just take a look.” The footage of Northern Parliament shipgirls engaged in a battle in Syria, Northern Parliament battleship firing missiles, and of course, Moskva, a Cold War-era warship that sank six years ago that somehow returned as a shipgirl were now shown. “Before I continue, let me tell you about the state of our naval strength as of now.” Gayle places his hand on the table before continuing.

“Back when the Sirens first invaded Earth 17 years ago, the major naval powers went all out to fight them. US Navy, the Royal Navy, you name it, went in and do you know what happened? The Sirens wiped the seafloor with them. The US Navy alone lost six out of eleven carriers during that battle, and of the remaining five that managed to return home, one had to be scrapped; it was estimated that the ill-fated battle destroyed almost 70 percent of NATO’s naval force.” He pauses for a moment before continuing. “And for the next ten years, the Navy was reduced to nothing more but coastal garrisons, fending off Siren attacks and that’s it. Everyone just hunkered down and hoped that the Sirens could be driven away without causing too much damage.”

“When you shipgirls helped stabilize the situation, that’s when everyone started building ships again. But even then, the economic situation meant for the most part everyone went to build fast attack crafts. It took us until September 2020 before we laid down the first Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, and said carrier was still in sea trials as I am speaking now. And here’s where the problem is.” Gayle took a moment to take a sip of his drink before proceeding. “If one thing I can say about this, we are in serious need of rebuilding our naval capability, to better picture this situation, just this whole containment operation alone took up almost half of our available vessels. But it’s going to take at most five to ten years to recover at most 50 percent of our naval strength, and that timeframe is too long for us as I’m speaking.” Gayle then brought up the photos again. He then turned his face towards the commanders and shipgirls.

“This here is what we fear about your organization. Most of the time, we thought that since shipgirls were only limited up until World War Two technology, we figured that if any of you went rogue, or a country decided to turn the shipgirls against us, we could easily put you down. Modern technology has come a long way, too far for even the greatest of ships from your era to even hope of competing against. As such, we were more than happy to let you operate as you saw fit. We didn’t bother spending any more time or resources researching ways to modify any of the shipgirls apart from giving you better radars and computers because that thought was simply inconceivable. But!” He pointed his fingers at the screen.

“From what we’ve seen before just now has proven that our assumptions were wrong. Horribly wrong. Using shipgirls on land? You and us had a bad time with it during the initial attempt to contain the Infected, but now we have the Russians casually using their shipgirls in urban combat like it was a natural thing to do. Oh, how about this!?” He pointed at the two other photos on the screen. “Battleships firing missiles are one thing, but shipgirls hailing from the Cold War? We’ve reached a point where it now started to concern us more than you.” Gayle spoke grimly. The commanders and shipgirls didn’t say anything but their faces showed a mix of dread, shock, and disbelief over what the US Army general had just said.

“We get it. You have your secrets; I have my secrets, everyone has their secrets, and wants to keep them to themselves. But not everything can be kept secret forever, sometimes you have to share those secrets with others.” Gayle then leans forward a bit. “Especially when said secrets can greatly affect others around you.” His words caused King George V to tremble and her face to turn pale, which was noticed by the others.

“George? What’s wrong?” Eloisa asked.

“It’s, it’s…” George tried to reply, but before she could say something, Gayle spoke again.

“Which is why I’m directing this at you Royals.” He said with a stern face. “You already knew what would happen if a shipgirl tried to fire her weapon on an unmodified rigging ashore, but you didn't tell anyone until it was far too late. And you also had this critical information about our potential enemy, and now we're possibly several years behind them. And this revelation has come to us at the worst possible time in our history, as I said earlier about the state of our Navy. Ladies and gentlemen, we've seen how the shipgirls work. How they can whip up their ship whenever they need one, or how they can quickly create copies of their ships to augment their firepower or act as decoys. Fifty Iowa-class battleships coming at us, that's a stretch, but we can neutralize them before they can do any serious damage to us, no problem. But fifty Slava-class coming at us? Oh wait, why only Slava-class? Why don't we throw in the Kirov-class and the Udaloys? And do I need to add that these ships can now appear right in front of us with little to no warning, or in waters far from where any of us would least expect a naval attack? Imagine a whole fleet of them appearing on the Potomac, burning Washington and wiping out major military and civilian commands because they just show up out of nowhere and by the time we respond they are long gone. This is not something we can take lightly, especially when we now know that the enemy is training and arming their shipgirls to be used against us should hostilities break out. If this were to happen, the casualties, both military and civilian, would be unimaginable. And yet you have chosen to keep this critical information to yourselves. Why is that?”

King George V didn't answer Gayle's question. Belfast and Tyler certainly didn't answer either, partly because they were unaware of the sensitive information held by the previous government under Harland until NATO finally revealed it to them. The look that the other commanders and their secretaries gave to them didn’t help either, which is why both of them resigned to simply keep their heads low. Seeing that no one answers his question, Gayle decides to move forward. He checks the time on his watch before speaking.

“Well, looks like it’s time to take a break for an hour. There were more that we wanted to discuss about this, but we’ll continue the meeting after this. In the meantime, take this time to think about your choices and the consequences you are looking at right now.” Gayle said before he and others walked out of the room leaving the commanders and shipgirls alone in the room, awkwardly staring at one another, especially towards King George V.

1233

Bembridge Lifeboat Station, Joint NATO-Azur Lane Base Bembridge

It was quite an awkward scene seeing a group of people just standing outside without any of them talking to each other. Yet this was what the commanders and their secretary shipgirls ended up doing. Normally when they all gathered together there was bound to be some sort of communication, yet today, they all seemed to mind their own business. But now, no one had spoken anything for the past twenty minutes for everyone’s busy minding themselves.

Griggs, Winfried, and Reinald went on to smoke cigarettes, as did Enterprise, Belfast, and Jean Bart. Prinz Heinrich and Trieste were both vaping, while Tyler was busy packing tobacco into his pipe to bother saying something. This leaves Eloisa and King George V alone as the latter shares a bag of gummy bears with the battleship. This continued for a few minutes until Eloisa finally broke the silence.

“George, exactly how long did you and Harland know about all of this? I had never seen Gayle being that mad at us before until they showed us what you kept away from us.” She asked George. Heads turned to her and George looked down to avert eye contact, and then she answered.

“We discovered about it in February this year. Took an entire month for the files to be analysed and through what we’ve learned, we immediately began to create our version. But the government told us to keep our mouths shut until it’s time to reveal them to our allies.” George replied.

“And exactly when does your government plan to reveal it?” Reinald asked. “Until Russians parading their tanks down Champs-Élysées?”

“That’s…Sorry, I didn’t know that things would end up going like this.”

“Then again, how did you guys manage to get those files in the first place? I reckoned that the Russians would have placed a lot of securities around those files. It would be impossible to get to it by hacking unless you have someone from the inside to access it.” Griggs pointed out.

“Technically, we do have someone within the Northern Parliament,” Belfast spoke out.

“What? Who?” Reinald and Enterprise both asked the same question.

“Royal Sovereign.”

“Royal who?” Trieste spoke.

“Royal Sovereign. Two years ago, as part of the deal with Russia to help bolster the defences of the Arctic region, we transferred her to the Northern Parliament for two years. She was meant to be returned to us by the end of this year. But then the Rage Virus happened. As a result, Harland issued a written order demanding all Royals stationed outside of the United Kingdom to return to Belfast. All Royals complied to it, except her.”

“Why didn’t she come back?” Heinrich asked. It was George who answered her question.

“The Russian Government didn’t let her. For the time being, we assumed that they wanted to wait until the terms had ended. But if they didn’t, then we may have to ask them directly.” George replied.

“Right, just when we thought we only have to worry about an actual zombie apocalypse, now we have Russia playing games on top of that right when NATO just lost a main member and barely has enough ships to enforce the quarantine. Talk about a perfectly wrong timing.” Winfried spoke after finishing his cigarette.

“But still, I don’t get it. The Northern Parliament girls were quite friendly, but seeing them shooting those weapons like that feels so wrong.” Heinrich added.

“Not helpful considering that their commander was a bit of an ass to work with,” Reinald replied as he lit another cigarette.

“Hey now, what’s the deal with this Ilyas guy? Sounds like he has some rough relations with all of you.” Tyler asked. The other commanders looked at him, as Tyler was new to the story and hadn’t known much about the Northern Parliament commander.

“So…Tyler, you read up about him before?” Griggs asked him.

“Yeah, his profile is in the guidebook, but it didn’t say much other than him being the oldest commander among all the other Azur Lane commanders right now.”

“Then like I said earlier; he’s an ass to work with. Kinda like a ghost if I had to say, you know he exists but you won’t see his face unless he wants you to.”

“Shows up only at important meetings, but most of the time he didn’t bother showing up, maybe just sending his girls over to represent him. Even the Dragon Empery commander is easier to work with.” Winfried continued.

“And when he does, he might stick around for an hour or two and then disappear,” Griggs added.

“At least he was polite with his manners,” Eloisa spoke.

“That bad? How the hell did he become their commander?” Tyler was shocked at hearing what the others had said about Ilyas. Winfried took a long drag of his cigarette before he spoke.

“You might be shocked, but the thing is, he was a man suitable for the job, according to Russia at least.”

“And what did he do that made him to be a commander?”

“You may know that most of us originally served in our respective nation’s navy before becoming commanders for the Azur Lane. Ilyas was no different, but what set him apart from the others was he originally was from the Russian Army. If anyone had the most military combat experience, it’s him.” Winfried explained.

“What, the Army?” How did he get from there to here?” Enterprise asked. Winfried finishes his cigarette before continuing.

“Well, back when he was young, Ilyas had a dream: He wanted to be a cosmonaut. He read the stories of the Soviet space program and their achievements, and wanted to one day become one of them.” Just mentioning the Soviets was all it took for the commanders to know that this story was about to take a dark turn.

“So he wants to go to space, what happened?” Jean Bart asked.

“Unfortunately for him, in December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and so did his dream of being a cosmonaut. Dejected and having his dream imploded, he went on to become a fisherman in his town to support his family. But then, something big happened.”

“And that is?” Belfast asked.

“For a time being, Ilyas was stuck working as a fisherman in his home town by the Caspian Sea, and the prospect of thinking that the military may give him a better life caught on to him. Three years later, he decided to join the Russian Army. Also that same year, a region within Russia named Chechnya wanted to be independent. They proclaimed independence and in December 1994 the Russian Army were sent in to defeat the separatists. And what happened there changed his life for good.”

“Oh shit, the First Chechen War,” Reinald muttered. “I remember reading and watching about it in the news, alongside the Yugoslav War and the First Nagorno-Karabakh. Shit, the 90s was brutal for anyone living east of Italy at the time.”

“You were right, friend. Me also had issues in the UK, The Troubles were still going on at the time, and Pa and me uncle kept telling stories about it all the time. Anyway, what the hell happened to Ilyas there?” Tyler asked Winfried. He took a sigh before answering.

“When Ilyas joined the Russian Army in February 1994, he was assigned to an infantry division, but not long before the start of the First Chechen War, he was reassigned to the 131^st Separate Motor Brigade, AKA the Maykop Brigade. When the Battle of Grozny started he was deployed there, on New Year’s Eve, his battalion arrived at the train station and waited there for further orders. That’s when the enemy commander contacted his commander.”

“Wait, why would the enemy contact them?” Enterprise asked.

 “What I know is, that the enemy commander used to serve together with his commander and considered him to be a friend, as such he pleaded with him to retreat his men from the station. But he didn’t, stating that he has orders.”

“And what happens next? Trieste asked. Winfried, Reinald, and Tyler looked at one another. The shipgirls didn’t know the story, on the other hand, the commanders do, being old enough at the time it happened to remember the news. Then Tyler spoke.

“Let’s just say that Ilyas’s unit was ambushed not long after the conversation between their commanders ended. The Chechens were already waiting in the buildings surrounding the station, and as soon as the signal was given, they all sprang out and fired guns and rockets at them.”

“And his entire unit was practically destroyed. Of the 1000 soldiers in that unit, only 160 survived. Ilyas was one of them. Russia lost that war, and thousands of lives were changed because of it. Ilyas’s life did change, just not in a way you might thought.” Said Winfried.

“By exactly what do you mean, his life changed?'” Asked Jean.

“To most Russians following the end of the war, they suffered trauma and depression. To Ilyas, he thought he could do better. So right after the Battle of Grozny, he left the army and went to the university. But he didn't go to a regular university. You see, in Russia, some universities have a military department which aims to train commissioned officers among its students. He got himself enrolled into one. Forgot what field he took but upon graduation four years later, Ilyas was a commissioned officer. Quite a good thing for him, because that same year he graduated, Russia went to war with Chechnya again.”

“Wait, they went to war with them again!?” Enterprise asked shockingly.

“In just four years!? Why!?” Trieste added.

“Yeah, exactly as I said. Russia and Chechnya went up against each other again in just four years.  The Russian Government said that Chechnya invaded the neighbouring Republic of Dagestan in August of that year thus violating their border. That and a series of apartment bombings a month later which the Russian Government quickly blamed on the Chechens. And that's how the Second Chechen War started.” Winfried finished his explanation.

“But I seriously doubted about those Chechens being responsible for the bombings,” Griggs spoke.  “To me, it sounds like a false flag attack done by the Russians themselves to rile up support among the general populace.”

“A bit too close to the truth, mate. Ever wondered how did Putin got elected as the Russian President only a few months later?”

“Who the hell's Putin?” Jean asked.

“We get to that later, but to cut it short, when Ilyas was drafted following his graduation he was now assigned to an artillery division. This time around, the Russians changed tactics. They subjected the Chechens to intense artillery barrages and aerial bombardment, and these were done indiscriminately. For days rockets, artillery shells, and bombs rained down on Grozny.” Winfried continued again. His words caused the shipgirls to wince upon hearing just what Winfried had told them.

“Long story short, Ilyas and everyone else involved razed the entire city to the ground. So much that Grozny was declared the most destroyed city in the world by the United Nations.” Reinald finished his explanation.

“Holy shit.” Trieste quietly exclaimed.

“Sounds familiar? It’s just like in Dover. Except NATO did it out of desperation and even then they waited until the Infected had entered the ferry landings before they flattened the whole place. Here? They bombarded them wherever and whenever they pleased. Anyone in their strike zone, rebels and civilians alike were all equal targets.”

“Civilians?” Enterprise became concerned.

“Yes, Enterprise. Not even civilians. I heard rumours that Ilyas’s unit was ordered to shell a village full of civilians to eliminate the rebels hiding there.” Griggs spoke.

“That’s not a rumour, Griggs. It happened. Fifty-plus dead or wounded.” Winfried replied in a matter-of-fact tone, shocking the shipgirls even further.

“What the fuck?” Jean responded, the battleship found what she just learned about the Northern Parliament commander was too disturbing to be true, but if Winfried had pointed it out, then it was real. “And the Russians put him in charge of the Northern Parliament?” She asked.

“Yes, Jean. Simply put, they put a person that is technically on paper, a war criminal as their commander.”

“How the hell did he even get in there if he wasn’t even in the Navy to start with!?” Heinrich now asked.

“Well, you see. Back when the Sirens invaded Earth 17 years ago, everyone responded to it with force. Russia included. All of you already knew the aftermath of that battle so let me cut the story short. Following having their Navy folded by the Sirens, Vladimir Putin, then President of Russia, ordered the expansion of their Coastal Troops to protect their coastal areas from Siren attacks. This means almost all non-essential units of the other branches of the Russian Armed Forces were disbanded and transferred into the Russian Navy. Ilyas’s artillery division was one of them and as such he ended up in the Coastal Troop and up until the creation of Azur Lane, spent his time guarding Russian towns and cities along the Baltic coast.” Winfried explained.

“And how did he come to be chosen as their commander? Well, Ilyas told me about it years ago. He said that not long after the treaty that led to the creation of Azur Lane was signed, he was visited in person by Putin himself. He said they needed someone who would be completely ruthless towards the enemy, and he was the one they had in mind. In short, he got to be a commander without having to go through any tests.” Reinald added.

“That’s it?”

“Like that Heinrich. Each one of us had to go through a written test, aptitude test, physical test, interviews and everything in between, and there was Ilyas, comfortably sitting in his chair long before Harland and I even made it past the initial selection. He was handpicked by Putin himself.” Winfried answered.

“God damn, even when I got a call from the SecDef saying that I got the role as the commander for the Eagle Union, I still got three interviews to get through,” Griggs replied.

“And for that reason, Northen Parliament’s tactics don’t run too far from Russian military doctrine. They just hurl their firepower liberally to solve every problem they encounter. Sometimes it works, at other times, it causes more problems. If you looked at their track record, whenever the Northern Parliament were present, they're bound to be collateral damage that follows.”

“Such as?” Jean asked. Winfried simply turned to Heinrich and asked her.

“Heinrich, would you mind telling everyone what happened in Helsinki three years ago?”  

“Helsinki? You mean that one?” Heinrich asked her commander, to which Winfried only nodded his head. “Oh, okay I guess.” She then faces the others and speaks up.

“About three years ago on January 19^th 2021, both us Iron Blood and Northern Parliament responded to a Siren attack near Helsinki, Finland. They attacked at two places, we responded near Ullanlinna, while the Northern Parliament responded near Vuosaari. When we arrived, the Sirens were quite close to the civilian areas but we have a strategy to deal with this situation. Destroyers and light cruisers rush in and get the Siren’s attention, and then lure them away into open waters where everyone is waiting. And once we deemed they were far enough from civilians, me, Blucher, and Tirpitz bombarded them back to kingdom come. Easy, the Sirens were destroyed, and the Ullanlinna was saved. Well, on our part that is.”

“Then what about the one that the Northern Parliament handles?” Trieste asked. Heinrich took a quick drag of her vape before continuing.

“How do they handle it? As soon as the Sirens were in the range of all their guns, they just opened fire on them. It worked; all the Sirens were destroyed. And so do three marinas and an entire waterfront. In short, the Northern Parliament caused more damage to the district than the Sirens did. Thankfully all civilians were evacuated so there weren’t any casualties, but the damages caused rendered many homeless and various companies to go out of business. The Finnish government weren’t happy about this and demanded reparations from the Russian government.”

“What in the god damn…” Tyler muttered.

“Yes. Like that, Tyler. They’re bound to cause some collateral damage whenever they go. They do tone it down a little bit but occasionally they made a few major fuckups once in a while.”

“Like?”

“May 2022. Stopped the Sirens from attacking Azovstal near Mariupol, ended up levelling half the fucking factory in the process.”

“Oh damn,” Reinald responded. “No wonder why steel prices suddenly went nuts in the following weeks.”

“July 2022. Damaged the grain terminal in the port of Odesa. December 2022, caused significant damage to the port town of Padilski. March 2023, knocked the Port of Ventspils out of operation for six weeks straight. There’s more but if I keep listing it out it would take forever to finish so let’s just say that the Northern Parliament is just something else.”

“That’s not fuckups, that’s total incompetency! Jesus, how the hell did they get away with all that!?” Trieste exclaimed.

“Simple. They just blame it on the Sirens. That and shoving boatload tons of reparation money to keep everyone shut up as well as claiming that Northern Parliament is not part of their armed forces and they were only responding to Siren attacks so Article 5 can’t apply to them.”

“Huh? Guess that’s what you get when you Europeans relied way too much on Russia for oil and gas. You can hate Trump all you want but you had to admit that he was right about this.” Griggs spoke.

“Err…actually, us Italians have been buying oil and gas from Ukraine since five years ago,” Eloisa replied.

"What's the difference? You know that Yanukovich's government is Russia's puppet, just as Lukashenko was, don't you? Some of that money gonna go into Moscow anyway."

“Just…uh, I don’t know. I normally stay away from politics.”

“Ughh…politics. A big can of worms most of us dodge unless necessary.” Tyler added.

“Yeah, if only we can even go anywhere without discussing it. Even Azur Lane itself couldn’t exist had everyone put their difference aside six years ago.” Reinald replied.

“Seriously? Some aliens were literally invading Earth and people still had time to fight each other?” Jean asked. There was a pause before Grigg answered.

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“Back when we first discovered shipgirls, it was just us Germans and the British. So for the time being, technically we were under NATO. But then Russia announced that they had their shipgirls, and that was right when we failed to push into the northern Atlantic. We needed more shipgirls at the time, so to avoid issues, it was decided that for the better of mankind, we all had to work together. So that’s how exactly Azur Lane was created.” Winfried spoke.

“Basically, the Sirens ironically brought us closer together to fight them back. But now that Sirens were out of the picture, there was no more common enemy to fight. You girls can already see the picture now, isn’t it? And there are still wars and conflicts going on even as the Sirens invade. There was the civil war in Syria, the civil war in Yemen and countless other wars in Africa that started not long after the invasion and are still going on today.” Reinald added.

“Yes, I understand that. But after watching the footage that General showed to us earlier, I just don’t get it.” Belfast spoke after being silent for a while.

“What is it, Belfast?” Eloisa asked.

“I mean, the Sirens gone, right? Humanity went on and united itself so we could defeat them, right? But why would the Russians push towards using us shipgirls to fight other humans? Why can't we just keep the peace? Just watching the Northern Parliament girls fire their weapons at other humans made me feel sick. The last time I had to fire my weapons at someone who was not a Siren was only a few weeks ago! I still have nightmares about it! That's not what we shipgirls are supposed to be or do!” The light cruiser ranted.

“Belfast…” George called her out.

“Girl, if you think that’s how the world worked, then you’re mistaken.” Someone spoke. Eyes turned to the person who spoke it.

Griggs.

“Commander?” Enterprise asked him.

“You are correct. The Sirens forced us to cooperate to defeat them. But I must stress that this cooperation is done because all of us have a mutual enemy. And when that mutual enemy is gone, so is every reason why we cooperated in the first place. And it happened. The Sirens’ gone. World peace was achieved. Well, sort of. Now that the Sirens were gone, suddenly there’s no reason why everyone wants to get along anymore. And knowing how Russia and China were, I probably had seen this problem coming since the beginning.”

“Then, why?”

"Because there was a nature in us humans that made us incapable of achieving true peace. There are things that we don't all agree on, and if we can't find a way to resolve those differences peacefully, we tend to fight. We always find reasons to hurt each other." Eloisa also speaks out. “Like what Griggs said, if that’s how you girls see the world, then I’m sorry that you now just learned that it wasn’t.”

"Besides, you girls yourselves were World War II warships. Let me repeat that for you. World. War. Two. If humanity knew how to live in peace with one another, you girls wouldn't exist. How ironic that you owe your existence to a conflict over eight decades ago”. Reinald chipped in.

“Commander!” Jean responded; she didn’t take that criticism lightly.

“Hate us if you like it, but that’s how it was. Believe me, we’ve been through it. And it’s not pretty.”

“Like how so?” Griggs gave out another puff of smoke before he spoke up.

“When the Cold War ended thirty years ago, we thought we’d won. The Soviets were gone, and there was no other power that could challenge us, our way of life. That’s what my dad said. But then one day we were attacked deliberately. I was only nine when it happened, but what happened that day changed how I see the world forever.”

“What happened that day, commander?” The other commanders only looked at each other, they knew what day Griggs was talking about. Enterprise also knew it, but the other girls didn’t know much about that day yet.

“Well, on that day, my school organised a trip to New York City. You know, we kids at the time only got to see the city on TV and in movies, so when you got a chance to visit the Big Apple for real, you don’t pass it up. I got the permission slip, Dad signed it, and that morning we all got on the bus and headed for the airport. Except we never really reached the airport.”

“Why you didn’t reach the airport? What happened?” Heinrich asked.

“Because that day my school went for that trip to NYC, was September 11^th 2001. One of the teachers received a call and soon they all spoke together in a hushed tone before telling the driver to head back to the school. Someone asked why we turned back and the teacher simply replied saying that our trip had to be rescheduled to a later date due to some unavoidable issues but just hearing her voice I can tell she’s lying. When we got back to school, parents were already waiting, some had worried looks plastered all over their faces. I, however, was picked up by one of my brothers. He said Mom, Dad and a few neighbors had been glued to the television since this morning, said that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers and sure enough when we got back home, the footage of the towers burning was shown on screen. They just watching the whole thing. I didn’t think anything much of it and later since there wasn’t much to do I went to the backyard and played some ball game with my brother, little sister and our neighbor’s kid who also had to return home from school that morning. We played for like, half an hour I think, and then I heard my dad shout ‘holy shit!’. We all ran back inside the house to see what’s going on, and there it happened.” Griggs paused as he took a breath before continuing.

“There, on the television, we saw the South Tower collapse.” His words made the girls gasp. “And just over half an hour later, the North Tower collapsed as well.” Griggs continued.

“The towers collapsed…Griggs, what happened to them?” Belfast asked him. Before he answered, Enterprise spoke first.

“On that day, two hijacked passenger jets were deliberately flown into the towers. It was part of a nationwide terrorist attack on America by a terrorist organisation known as Al-Qaeda.” She spoke, startling Belfast and the other shipgirls barring King George V. “The towers weren’t their only target, that same day, another hijacked jetliner struck the Pentagon. There’s a fourth one, but luckily the passengers fought back so the plane ended up crashing in a field in Pennsylvania instead of its intended target in D.C.”

“Oh god, that’s awful,” Trieste responded.

“It’s awful,” Griggs answered. “2977 innocent people, American or not, died that day. In my neighborhood alone, five families were directly affected. And that doesn’t count what happened in the next five years. Mine included.” Before anyone asked, he spoke again. “Following the attacks, America declared war on those terrorists, and many hot-blooded patriotic Americans chose to enlist in the armed forces to fight them. My eldest brother was among them; he was still in university when 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan later that year happened. When he graduated in 2003, as soon as he left the graduation hall he went straight for the nearest Marine recruitment station. By the time he came out a Marine, he was just in time for the Second Battle of Fallujah.” Griggs paused afterwards, sadness lining his face.

“What happened to your brother Griggs?” Eloisa asked him.

“My brother…he died fighting in the city. Just a fortnight before Christmas, a couple of Marines showed up at our house and delivered us the news. Dad didn’t react much, he was a former Marine, and he knew what risks my brother took and came to terms with it. Mom and my siblings, however, were devastated. We didn’t celebrate Christmas that year.”

“Oh man, sorry about your brother,” Winfried replied.

“Don’t worry, it happened,” Griggs replied. “Anyway, what did we get out of Iraq? Nothing. So many lives and money are wasted on a weapon that doesn’t exist. At least Afghanistan had a happier ending even if it meant getting ruled by the Taliban again since they’re now willing to cooperate. But Iraq? Just look at what happened to them. The fact that now Russia came over to clean up that mess that we made in the Middle East had me wonder just what the hell are we doing in those eight years.”

“Eight years? I thought the Siren invasion forced you guys out of there?” Jean Bart asked. Reinald quickly answered her.

“Yes and no. After the Sirens turned everything upside down in late 2007, NATO was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan. But while the European members went back to their countries, the Americans moved all their forces to Iraq and stayed there until 2011, when they were finally pressured, both domestically and internationally, to move them to Europe. It wasn’t until you girls showed up and stabilized the situation did the Americans were able to bring some of their forces back home.”

“Yeah, that happened. And look what it got us. The whole region is riddled with conflicts, and now our enemies are playing janitor there. Just hope they now started pointing their weapons at Russia and Iran unless they’re also playing games.” Griggs spoke again. “Now the point is, ever wonder why they fought us? They see us as different from them. We also saw them differently as well. Different skin, a different religion, different culture. When you can’t tolerate that, violence tends to follow.”

“Which is why stories where mankind is truly united are nothing more but a pipe dream. Wanna know what’s that called? A fanfiction.” Said Tyler. “That, and there are people who just wanted to see the world burn.”

“What…does that mean?” Inquired Trieste. Reinald, Winfried, and Griggs sighed at her question.

“Ah…here we go,” Reinald muttered. Griggs then spoke.

“Girls, let's just say that sometimes conflicts happen because some people…had their self-interest. Money, power, title, and anything in between. These people build their lives atop other’s misery. The simplest way I can explain it to you girls is this example: Every time you fire your guns, we have to restock the ammunition. Those came from the Navy, and where did they get them? From defense contractors. And it’s our tax money that pays for those guns, missiles, and rockets that we use. Why I’m saying this? Because the people who produce those weapons and the people who buy them are in bed with each other. The manufacturers needed conflicts so they could sell their weapons, so politicians started them. It's not that hard, they always find excuses be it religious, political, racial, or historical, or be like Bush and manufacture that excuse themselves and make your citizens believe them. And when the war does start, the military needs those weapons and these companies happily sell them. To them, it's a win-win. The politicians got the war they wanted, and the companies made dollars. Well, except for whoever at the receiving end that is.”

“Huh? Wha-?” Heinrich responded, completely confused with what Griggs had just said, which prompted Winfried to respond.

“Okay, Heinrich. You know that sometimes we had to deal with the guys that manufactured our equipment do you?”

“Yes, and?”

“Do you know why sometimes I have to reject some of their offers?”

“No.”

“Because they tried to sell stuff that you girls don’t even need. I mean, new computers for target calculations are acceptable, but a CIWS? Unless the Sirens started shooting cruise missiles I found no need for such weapon onboard any of you, and the Sirens certainly did not have missiles throughout the Siren War.”

“And your point is?” Jean interjected.

“Look, like Griggs said; we relied on companies like Rheinmetall and OTO to produce our guns and ammo. That was certain; those weapons had to be remanufactured just for you girls.” Reinald answered her. Then he continued. “But at first, it was just the equipment you need, then they started pushing things. Sometimes I accepted it because it was genuinely useful for a shipgirl, but like Winfried pointed out, soon they started offering things that you don’t need. After hearing what Griggs said, and what we learned earlier with the Russians, I think it’s clear now.”

“Oh wow, how classic. Military-industrial complex seeking to milk money outta you girls. Why haven’t I’m not surprised.” Tyler curtly spoke.

“So you’re saying…that these companies were trying to make money from us?” Trieste spoke.

“Yes, and I’m not lying. You saw what the Russians had done. On their side, there’s Uralvagonzavod, KTRV, Almaz and those are the ones I know. And they’re already in service which means the landrigs were already in production for their side. On our side, there’s General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Lockheed, and those were just in the US. And since the British tried to copy the Russians first I assumed BAE was developing the NATO-compliant version before the outbreak. And now that NATO knows, chances are these companies were also informed and if it does, you girls might want to enjoy world peace while it still lasts, because I’m betting in the next eighteen years NATO and Russia or whoever’s the bad guy is will be hurling haymakers at each other and you girls are going to be part of it.”

“But…but! Can’t you do something about it?” Belfast asked. Eloisa shakes her head.

“We can’t. They’re already like this even when Sirens were the big threat but back then, we can turn them down easily by saying that the shipgirls are to fight Sirens and Sirens only. But like what Griggs and Winfried had told you, they will come for you and had no qualm lobbying the armed forces and politicians to pressure us. And if we still refuse…”

“They just replace us with someone who will bend the knees to them. Nuff said.” Tyler added, letting out puffs of smoke out of his pipe.

“Dang, everyone’s smoking cigs or vaping and you here used a pipe like an old-timer,” Griggs noted.

“Hey, no harm sticking with traditions,” Tyler replied. Then they heard a beeping noise coming from Reinald’s smartwatch. He took a glance at it before speaking.

“Oh, break’s over. Come on, we had to go back to the meeting.”

“Ah, okay,” Heinrich replied. Winfried noticed the gloom in her voice and spoke.

“Well girls, sorry that is how you learned how ‘colourful’ modern geopolitics and military-industrial complex are. Welcome to the real 21^st Century, girls. Better get used to it, it’s going to be your life now.”

“Yeah, thanks for the advice,” Jean answered. The others just shrugged as they headed back to the conference room.

1330

Conference Room, Joint NATO-Azur Lane Base Bembridge

When they got back to the conference room, the girls could feel the heaviness in the air. After the earlier incident, they knew NATO wouldn't take kindly to being outgunned by their enemies, especially in the current situation they were in.

“Damn, can’t these NATO people chill for a minute? They’re really getting on my nerves.” Heinrich quietly whispered to Jean Bart, who just responded with a shrug as they sat down on their chairs along with their commanders while waiting for General Gayle and his officers to return. And when they did return, the atmosphere just got heavier.

“Well, done reflecting your actions yet?” Gayle asked.

“To be honest, General, it’s kinda complicated a bit since we got to get them up to speed on modern geopolitics first, but yeah, we’re working on it,” Griggs replied back.

“Good, because what we’re going to discuss next is still connected to the debacle your whole organization had just got yourselves into. Now, let me recap what had happened based on the information we had.” Gayle gestured his hands as one of his officers opened a slide to be shown. When everyone was ready, he began to speak.

“On the early morning of May 14^th, animal activists broke into the Primate Research Facility in Cambridge, presumably to save the chimpanzees that were kept there but in the process, they accidentally released the Rage Virus. Within hours the virus spread throughout the city despite efforts by the British authorities to curb its spread. To keep the population from panicking it was described as a student riot.” As he spoke, the slide showed some pictures of what happened in Cambridge during the early hours of the outbreak. “But at the end of the day, those efforts failed and the Infected began to head towards London. As a result, by the second day with the Infected rapidly approaching the city the decision was made to deploy Azur Lane’s Royal Navy to assist the Army.”

“From what we’ve learned from King George V, Harland strongly opposed the deployment of his shipgirls to fight the Infected, but somehow were coerced to do so by the higher-ups for some unknown reasons. She said he sounded like he was threatened; exactly what happened, we don’t know. Was it correct, George?” He asked George, who gave a light nod before speaking.

“Yes. I heard him yelling over the phone that morning. He was furious with whoever was on the phone at first, but then he changed his tone and suddenly agreed to deploy us. He never told me exactly what he heard from them until that night.” George spoke before lowering her head upon finishing her talk. Belfast and Tyler understood what night she was referring to, but preferred to keep quiet about it.

“Right, and from that day onwards the Royal Navy alongside the British Army tried to fight the Infected, and from what we know the Royal Navy suffered horribly with six shipgirls dead or Infected on the first day alone. That’s when you found out the shipgirls were useless on land.” Gayle spoke again, and this time Belfast replied.

“Yes, I was there that day.” She spoke. “And yet despite this knowledge, they proceeded to call in the Azur Lane anyway without our knowledge.”

“Which takes us to our next point,” Gayle said as the slides changed again. “To convince America, France, Germany, and Italy to send in their shipgirls as well, the British government opted to say that the shipgirls were effective but they needed additional hands. At the time we also had no idea how terrible the situation was for the shipgirls and ended up sending in our shipgirls to assist. The US sent out 42 shipgirls, France sent 17, Germany sent 24, and Italy sent 12. When they arrived, the British opted to keep them out of the loop by saying that the Royal Navy was busy and instead, they all had to take their orders from the Admiralty. At the same time, they didn’t inform the Royal Navy of the presence of other Azur Lane shipgirls up until The Breach itself.”

“God, what a fucking stupid move.” Jean groaned.

“They’re really that desperate to get help that lying to us was a good idea?” Trieste added.

“Judging from the fact that we all sent you down the streets that day, unfortunately yes. We all got duped by the British government. Should’ve asked for a fact-check first." Griggs replied. “But we all eaten what they told us and look what mess we got.”

“Yes, but anyways, let’s continue.” Gayle interjected. “Right, when Harland finds out about the deployment of other Azur Lane shipgirls in London, he and the rest of the Royal Navy did their best to contact them but their attempts to communicate were blocked by their higher-ups for unspecified reason but we assumed it was to keep them from communicating with the other shipgirls earlier to maintain the illusion that the situation is under control when in fact the Royal Navy just got massacred by the Infected at Cricklewood.”

“What the fuck, that’s no longer incompetence. More like…self-sabotage.” Reinald spoke, his voice appalling from what he learned now. “You don’t normally do that unless you wanted to purposely kill them.”

“But I think it was more of wanting to keep us all from panicking.” Eloisa replied, and eyes started looking at her as if they wanted an explanation of her statement. Sensing this, she nervously replied. “You think for a second. You all got there, with radio silence from the Royal Navy. They already fought the Infected for days and knew that shipgirls are helpless outside of their element. If they told about it too soon, we’re be panicking all over the place and made any defences impossible. I say that Harland’s warning did came at the right time since everyone was in their place so pulling the girls out was easier. Imagine if it came too early, when none of you weren’t even ready.”

“Hmm…” Enterprise thought for a moment as she processes Eloisa’s statement. She was right, had Harland or any of the Royal Navy girls managed to contact them while they’re still organizing, it would be a pandemonium as they would want to leave just as everyone is trying to establish a defensive position. When the Breach happened, most shipgirls were already at their designated spots with soldiers already there to hold the line. When they received warnings from Harland, they were quickly withdrawn as transport often were already there. The only reason it went south was due to the sheer number, ferocity and speed of the Infected which caught up to them while they’re still being withdrawn which led to so many deaths among them as many were caught off-guard.

“But still, keeping them silent from us isn’t going to do any good was it? Much as it was keeping us away from them.” Heinrich pointed out.  “At least they tried getting to us.”

“Exactly. Unable to use their own communication system, Harland turned to the British Army to get their warnings out. It worked, but because of the time needed to relay the message to each of you shipgirls, by the time it reaches you the Infected was already encroaching the defence lines. Some of you managed to escape unharmed, but many were failed to escape. Despite launching a CSAR the following day, only a handful of shipgirls were successfully rescued.” Griggs finished. Silence temporarily befell the room. The commander’s and shipgirls tried to process what they learned.

“That many deaths and misery… all caused from wanting to keep the situation under control.” Eloisa remarked.

“And they did a poor job at it.” Tyler replied. “Right, now that we know how it goes down, now what? What are we’re going to do now?”

“Right now? Our main objective as of now was to clear London of all remaining Infected, and that includes the ISGs as well. But with recent revelation, there was some concern about what the Brits been developing, which itself I remind all of you, was a copy of what Russia had already developed and fielded. From what we’ve learnt, those prototypes was a liability too great to be ignored, not to mention it was miles better from we currently have for your shipgirls. And given that our plan to eliminate those ISGs does involves deploying the shipgirls back on the streets, we say that retrieving those prototypes was paramount.”

“Okay, that’s a sound plan, General. But where exactly are these prototypes at the moment?” Reinald asked.

“Well, why don’t we just ask the only person in this room that knows about it long before any of us do.” Gayle breathed. All eyes started turning on King George V, who was more fixated on munching a bag of Ruffles before noticing that everyone is looking at her.

“Um…yes?” George asked as she put the snack aside and hastily cleaning her fingers.

“Do you know exactly where these prototypes were stored?” Gayle asked her. She stayed silent before finally speaking.

“Larkhill.”

“Come again, Lark-what?” Jean Bart asked.

“Larkhill. Made sense. That’s where the Royal Artillery is based and where the Royal School of Artillery was. They regularly trained there.” Tyler interjected.

“Correct. There were supposed to be a weapons test the same week the outbreak started. We managed to evacuate the scientists and engineers working on the prototypes, but they said they couldn't get them out because the Infected had reached the base before they could transport them.”

“So, those prototypes was developed and stored there?” Gayle asked her.

“Yes, but I don’t know exactly where in Larkhill did they store those prototypes. The Army never really spoke much about it other than showing us progress and telling us to get a few shipgirls out for testing that week.”

“If I remember, Larkhill was hit later long after London. Which means the Infected down there were probably still active.” Reinald pointed.

“Great, now it’s like finding a needle in a haystack, except said haystack is surrounded by zombies.” Griggs muttered.

“General, was retrieving these prototypes important right now?” Winfried asked.

“Well, let's put it this way: We will probably have your shipgirls back on the streets against the Infected within the next two weeks. From what I see, your girls really need something better than just sticking machine guns on their rigs and hoping for the best. And those land rigs we saw earlier were miles better than any modifications we've made to your girls. So we might as well try to get our hands on one. Second, there were the Russians. You've seen the footage before of their shipgirls and their army fighting alongside each other in a way that was much smoother than we thought the Russian Army would be. That has to be a serious combined arms effort that takes months and years to perfect. If these files are true, then we've just started using your shipgirls alongside our forces in conventional warfare, while the Russians have been doing it for four years. Like it or not, we may have to start using your girls more often to even the field.” Gayle replied. Winfried however, didn’t feel convinced of his answers, maintaining a stoic face as if he noticed that the answer was just too shallow to be accepted.

“Okay, is there anything else you wanted to add to those excuses?”

“That, and some of the contractors wanted to see those prototypes up close, so we might need your shipgirls help to retrieve it.”

“Oh, so we’re doing delivery service for you now?” Gayle didn’t reply, prompting Griggs to chip in.

“If that’s what you guys wanted us to do, any of you had ideas on how to get there in the first place? We’re talking about finding some fancy new tech hidden in a town full of zombies here. And I’m not sending my girls in unless there’s a plan that I can agree with.”

“Not to mention that we have to get those prototypes out. Chances are, you still need the shipgirls to get them out safely. So yes, like Griggs said I’m not risking my girls for some thingmajig we only just found out.” Reinald entered the argument.

“Um, permission to speak, Kommandant?” Someone joined the conversation from behind Winfried prompting him to turn around to see Prinz Heinrich just behind him.

“Yes Heinrich, what is it?” He responded.

“So, how about just jumping off out of a plane?” She casually suggested.

“Wha-?”

“I mean, that’s the most feasible way to get there, right. Just jump out of the plane, find those…prototypes and retrieve them, and then get out with those prototypes in tow. That sounds easy right?” There was some silence before Trieste opened up.

“Heinrich, did you played some video games last night?” She asked.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, you had to jump out of a plane in one of the levels where you have to infiltrate a mansion up in the mountains to apprehend a suspected terrorist, and it kinda looked cool. I just thought might worked in this case. Buuut I just don’t think that this idea would get through because none of us ever jumped out of a plane before, so you all don’t have to take it seriously. Aha…Aha…Ahahaha..!” She gave out a small laugh hoping that it could lighten the mood, but when she looked around she noticed that everyone’s looking at her. Gayle and the other NATO officers in the room all looked at her with faces full of determination, while the commanders and the other secretary girls simply facepalmed which exuded the unspoken but not unheard “you just had to screw us all” energy to it.

“W-why are you all looking at me like that?”

“You said about jumping out from a plane wasn’t it?” One NATO officer asked her.

“No, no, no, no, no! I only suggested it, I didn’t say we should do it! We shipgirls barely able to fight on land with what we have, how are you expecting us to jump out of a plane? We don’t have that kind of experience! You all doesn’t have to take it very seriously!” Heinrich tried to clarify her idea, only to find that none of them bought it.

“You all are taking my idea seriously, right?” She asked nervously. There was a moment of silence before a German Army officer answered her.

“Well, you see Heinrich.” He spoke in German. “You’ll be surprised with what we can do when we’re in a pinch.”

Four days later,

1^st July 2024, Day 49

0800

Above Larkhill, GBQZ South Sector

Multiple military transport aircrafts from four different armies, the US Army, German Army, French Army and the Italian Army were flying high above the Salisbury Plains as they approached the town of Larkhill in southern England. Their occupants inside had one goal: secure and extract a new piece of technology developed by the British that was now left abandoned in a town surrounded by the Infected, which unlike the ones in London, were still active and posed a threat to them.

Hence why the US Air Force, the French Air Force and the Luftwaffe had been busy the past few days, bombing the area surround Larkhill to kill as much Infected as they could, as well as creating a buffer zone to reduce as much risks as they could before they even bothered sending their soldiers in.

Even the aircraft formation itself was unusual. While most of the aircrafts were made up of C-130Js and A400Ms, one lone C17 Globemaster stands out among them, and for good reason: It carries NATO-affiliated shipgirls into the drop zone. For the past three days, 32 shipgirls, eight of various types except for submarines from each faction barring the Royal Navy were sent by their commanders to be trained on the basics of parachuting. Three days of gruelling training which obviously made a few girls unhappy with this sudden decision.

“What the hell man, I read a lot about them, but I thought NATO doesn’t do rush jobs like this.” Baltimore grumbled.

“I don’t know, but I heard from my commander that NATO really wanted whatever tech we’re supposed to retrieve here. Says they got spooked upon learning that their enemies was one step ahead from them but then learned that the British had developed something to counter it only to be left abandoned when the outbreak happened.” Abruzzi replied.

“But really? That’s the reason why we all ended up having to learn how to jump out from of a plane? What idiot comes up with this idea? They’re stupid or something? And why did we have to do it?” Magdeburg responded.

“Well, a certain genius thought it would funny to suggest a half-assed idea at a NATO meeting thinking they won’t take it seriously. Turns out they weren’t kidding when they said they’re going to make us jump out of a plane one way or another. And for the why, they said whatever technology stashed there worked only for shipgirls so they need us to help retrieve it.” Jean Bart huffed.

“Really!? That’s why suddenly we all were forced to learn how to jump out of a plane!?” Northampton grumbled. Nearby, Prinz Heinrich can hear their conversation but decided to act dumb to avoid anyone from finding out that the whole thing was her “stupid idea” all along, that is until someone leaned next to her and whispered into her right ear.

“This was your idea, wasn’t it?” Lutzow whispered.

“Please, just don’t tell anyone because I’m sure everyone’s looking for someone to blame for what happened in the past few days.” Heinrich whispered back.

“Ufufu…don’t worry, I keep my mouth zipped.” Lutzow responded before pulling away from her. She then noticed Seydlitz cowering in fear.

“What’s the matter? Scared?”

“Of course I am! I’m not good with planes!”

“And why so?”

“Because it’s cramped in here, and we’re flying higher and faster than the ones we once saw back then. It’s really getting onto me.”

“Aww…then let me play something for you to help cure that anxiety.” Lutzow then browsed on her phone for an appropriate song to play and proceeds to play it next to Seydlitz

[Now Playing: Sabaton – The Red Baron]

“THAT’S NOT HELPING!” Seydlitz yelled, earning some chuckle from the other girls that found some amusement on that. Heinrich meanwhile, heard the sound of a knife being sharpen to her left, which when she looked at the source, it was Roon sharpening her combat knife. She does have some concern for her, being back into active combat so soon after what had happened to her.

“Hey, wasn’t it a bit too early for you to go back to combat?” She asked the prototype cruiser.

“I had too. I got bored of staying in the base. Besides…” Roon then looked at her right hand as she flex her fingers. “I wanted to see how far can this hand that Roth gave me can go.” She said as she resumed sharpening her knife. Elsewhere in the plane, Mainz was minding her business while inspecting the SCAR-H in her hand. Winfried had already briefed them earlier about what their current mission objective is, but despite the training they received, the prospect of having to face the Infected again was still a thorn in her memory. As she gave her thoughts on it, someone called her.

“Mainz? You good?” St Louis spoke to her. Mainz looked up to see the Eagle light cruiser sitting in front of her, inspecting her shotgun that she was issued to.

“Yeah, I’m good. Why you’re asking?” Mainz replied back.

“Well, you looked nervous.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Got something in your head?” Mainz pondered as she tries to come up with an answer to St Louis before giving up a sigh.

“You know, we’re going back in. Back against those freaks again. It’s almost two months and yet memories of that day are still stuck in my head.”

“Relax. We now are better prepared, wasn’t it?  Just stick to what we’ve learned. Besides, it wasn’t just us that will be down there, we even have air support.” St Louis replied as she places her shotgun aside to inspect her sidearm, which made Mainz to comment on it.

“Surprised you still used that thing.” She said, pointing at the M1911 in St Louis’s hand.

“Well, it worked. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“There’s like, even modern handgun, like mine.” Mainz responded by showing her Glock 17. “Even your fellow Eagles opted to use the newer M17.” She pointed her thumb at Baltimore, who are now inspecting said gun in her hand.

“Mainz, there was something special about the M1911. This pistol was designed by John Moses Browning when the US Army decreed that they need a semi-automatic service pistol with a calibre no less than the .45. It was said the round is capable of stopping a charging horse with only a shot. I don’t know if that’s true or not but back then in the streets this pistol made every Infected I shot drop dead with only a shot. So yeah, I like it. It’s simple, it’s reliable, I can trust my entire life on it.” Just as she said it, the lights goes off and was replaced with a red light illuminating the plane’s interior as an alarm begins to sound.

“Oh, it’s starting.” Enterprise spoke, then the loadmaster walked towards the back of the plane before speaking.

“Everyone, stand in line now!” He commanded. The girls obeyed him as they all stood up and began to form two lines. As they do so, Heinrich’s mind lingers back to their briefing earlier that day.

0630

Bembridge Base

“Alright ladies, listen up!” Gayle’s booming voice echoed in the room ensuring even the sleepiest person in the room to pay attention. “We’ve spent three days prepping you girls up for this mission. We gave you the training, we gave you the tools, now it’s time for all of you to show your worth. You’re not the only ones jumping into the hell there, you’re going alongside the 82^nd, the French 1^st Parachute, the German 1^st Airborne, and the Italian 187^th. They’re among the best jumpers we have and they will accompany you. We also had the Air Force bombing the surrounding areas for the past three days so the only Infected you will encounter is the ones already in the AO. But we’re also have drone and gunship support ready to provide CAS should you need one. But for the rest of the briefing, I’ll let your commanders take over. Commanders, you have the floor.” Gayle ends his speech. Griggs then walked forward.

“Thanks general. Now, as you all know; the British had developed several landrig prototypes meant to allow you girls to fight in a conventional warfare, and these prototypes were currently being stored in Larkhill. So for this mission, our objective is to find, secure and retrieve these prototypes. And to do that smoothly, we will do it in four phases. Reinald.” Griggs gestured the Iris commander and he steps in.

“The first phase will be the infill. All of you will jump out of a plane and towards the town below. Remember, like the general said, we’re not going in alone. There will be other paratroopers going in and they will jump first ahead of you to secure a landing site. All you girls had to do is to land on those sites. They will be all marked with colored smoke so memorize these so you which is which: Red is American, blue is French, green is Italian, and yellow is German. You see any of those colored smoke, you go for it and once you landed, quickly link up with the soldiers. Now, Winfried.”

“Danke. Right, once you linked up with the soldiers, you were then are to comb the town for the prototypes. We don’t know exactly where they were stored but we suspected that it might in the military base itself, specifically these hangars.” Winfried spoke as he points his laser on the map displayed on the screen. “Now, should we were able to locate the prototypes, Tyler will explain what to do.” Tyler then took over the briefing.

“Thanks Winfried. Now, since this prototype as what intel we have were initially developed by us, it is likely that it was meant to be used only by the Royal Navy. As such, once the prototypes has been found and secured, my girls will be flown in to retrieve it. Save some logistics, since trying to haul each and every one of the prototypes one by one would be A nightmare given the situation we have. But for the last phase, I’ll let Eloisa to cover it.” Tyler then backs out to allow Eloisa to cover the final phase.

“Once the Royal Navy girls had retrieved the prototypes, everyone head for the extraction point where NATO will exfil each and every one of you. General, you can have the floor again.” Eloisa retreats as Gayle walked in front of them again.

So are you all clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” The girls all replied.

“Good, now everyone get in the plane. Me and your commanders will oversee you as the mission progress.”

And so, her thoughts came back to the present. She looked around her, each shipgirls in the aircraft were heavily dressed and equipped. Gone are their usually colourful outfits, instead they now wear a regular service uniform of their respective country’s army. Heinrich alongside her fellow Iron Bloods were all sporting the Bundeswehr Flecktarn BDU, complete with armoured vest and combat helmet and most importantly, gas masks to cover their face from the upcoming bloodbath. Shipgirls from the other factions were also dressed in similar getup. NATO initially considered giving them HAZMAT suits but it was feared that it may interfere with their rigging, hence the last-minute improvisation in form of leather padding on their arms and neck guards for protection against bites and taping their gloves to their sleeves. As she looked around, Winfried contacted them.

“Girls, do you hear me?” He spoke.

“Yes Kommandant, we heard you loud and clear.” Z23 answered.

“Good, listen. Once you’re on the ground, deploy your riggings and regroup quickly with the soldiers. For those with separate rigging like Roon and Heinrich, wait until it is safe to summon them. Until then just use your firearms provided to you. Am I clear?”

“Ja.” Roon replied.

“Very well. Now here’s another information I have to disclose. This was about your neck guards you all are wearing.” There was a pause before Winfried continued. “I was told that the neck guards contained explosives and each of us and NATO have a finger on the trigger.” His words sent shudders among the Iron Bloods. A quick look on the other shipgirls also shows similar reaction meaning all of them had the same treatment.

“NATO told me should any of you got infected, either we or Gayle will detonate it, and if it all fails there’s a cruise missile ready to be fired at you. So please avoid unnecessary risks.”

“Understood, Kommandant. Strasse out.” The carrier replied. Just then, the loadmaster spoke again.

“Sixty seconds until door’s open. Get ready!”

[Electronic music starts playing]

Few of the girls, especially the Sardegna’s and Iris already began giving out the Sign of the Cross while other’s just quietly prayed for their safety. And of course it attracted Joffre’s attention when she saw Jean Bart of all people wounded up doing the Sign.

“Since when did you find religion?” She asked her.

“About three days ago when they agreed to this hair-brained plan.” Jean replied as she finished her prayers.

“Then do us some favour and pray for all of us.” Joffre replied. Jean didn’t reply as she puts on her gas mask, prompting Joffre to do the same. Everyone did their final checks on their uniform and equipment. Switching on their communication device, they can now hear the radio traffic of the combat that was already happening outside.

“Good tone. Good tone. Magnum. Magnum.”

“Grid WB 850 708, Infected in the open. Fire for effect!”

“This is Skyhammer, we’re in position, ready to provide CAS. Signal your targets with smoke.”

“Bembridge, we’re in the drop zone; preparing for the drop.”

“Understood, mission is a go.”

“Ten seconds!” The loadmaster yelled again. Everyone tensed up. Ten seconds passed and eventually, they heard a whirring noise as the rear cargo door opens.

[Now playing: Johan Skugge & Jukka Rintamäki – Battlefield 3 Main Theme]

The sound of rushing air quickly filled their ears, and as the door opened fully, they could see what was outside. The paratroopers accompanying them had already jumped out of their planes and down below, fire and smoke raged in the surrounding area as NATO had spent the last three days bombing the surrounding areas to kill the Infected and create a perimeter to ensure that no Infected from the outside could get in and the only ones they would encounter would be those already inside Larkhill. As they watched, an alarm sounded three times and the loadmaster urged them to jump.

“What are you waiting for!? Go, go, go!” He shouted. The girls stood around, all seemingly dumbfounded as they stared at the open doors.

“So, which one of us wanted to jump first?” Kersaint asked. No one answered for a moment before someone finally decided to jump.

“Ugh…you guys. Let me go first. Iris, with me!” Said Jean Bart as she began to run towards the exit.

“Hey Jean, wait!” Foch tried to stop her, but the Iris battleship had reached the edge and promptly jumped out of the C17.

And with that, Jean Bart wounded up in the history book as the first NATO-affiliated shipgirl to be airdropped into an active battlefield.

"Ah shit, here we go. All right, Eagles, on me! Hooyah!" Enterprise shouted as she too began to run for the exit.

“Hooyah!!” Her shouts were answered by the rest of the Eagles as Baltimore, Northampton, Georgia, Reno, Allen, and Mullany all followed Enterprise as they all jumped out of the plane.

“Oh, fuck yeah!!!!” Baltimore yelled as she began her free fall.

"Hey, the Eagles have jumped out and so has Jean, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Joffre urged the rest of the Iris still on board as she too began to move towards the exit.

“Ah..okay. Hey come on girls, we have a drop to make!” Kersaint spoke as she does the same.

“Gascogne, initiating jump procedure.” The prototype battleship remarked as she began to follow her Iris compatriot.

“Reinald, if you heard us, we’re jumping!” Foch yelled into her comms before sprinting towards the exit together with Algerie and L’Opiniatre.

“Acknowledged.” Reinald answered with a simple phrase. However, despite both the Eagles and the Iris had jumped out, two of them still stays.

“Uh, you don’t wanna jump?” St Louis asked Emile Bertin.

“Um…I kinda feel nervous about this.” Emile replied.

"Well, how about we all jump together? I mean, we have fought together before." Mainz broke into their conversation.

"Aye, I can do that." She replied. And so they began to run towards the exit, St Louis and Mainz each taking Emile's arm. "Promise me we'll all land together at the same time?" She asked again.

“We’ll try.” Both St Louis and Mainz replied. And as all three light cruisers reached the edge of the ramp, they all vaulted headlong and out into their freefall.

“Oh God!!!” They all yelled as gravity began to take hold of their bodies. Meanwhile inside the plane, Littorio gave one final speech of encouragement to her fellow Sardegnas.

“Alright my fellow Sardegna’s, today is a bit different from what we usually do, but as usual, it’s never a walk in the park for us. Today, our objective is to help NATO secure a piece of tech that according to our lovely sorella Eloisa said is key to the future of us shipgirls, and the only thing guarding that technology from our grasp was a bunch of mindless Infected. So, who wants to secure our future!? Who wants to tell those Infected to get some!? Are we all good to get some!?” She asked.

“Yup-yup!” The rest of the Sardegna’s replied.

“I said, are we all good to get some!?” She asked again, but louder.

“Yup-yup!” They replied again, even louder.

“Good! Now my sorellas, let’s go!!! Forza Sardegna!!!” Littorio screamed as she ran towards the exit. She was followed by an equally loud “Forza Sardegna” battle cry as Marco Polo, Aquila, Duca degli Abruzzi, Trieste, Zara, Carabiniere and Vincenzo Gioberti all ran alongside her as they all jumped out together, leaving only the Iron Bloods left.

“Well, somebody’s been motivated lately.” Lutzow whispered to Roon, who just nods her head.

“Uh-huh.” She replied nonchalantly as she put her knife back into its sheath. Then Ulrich stepped forward.

“Okay, we all heard what our Italian friends says. Now, I don’t have much to say, but remember what Winfried said. Deploy our riggings only when it is safe. You shitheads got it!?”

“Jawohl!!”

“Alright, then let’s not waste our time here. So come on, you all wanna live forever!?” Ulrich spoke again as she began to run for the exit.

“Come on, Roon. Showtime!” Heinrich tapped her shoulder as she and her fellow Iron Blood raced Ulrich to the exit.

“Yeah, showtime.” Roon remarked as she, Prinz Heinrich, Peter Strasse, Ulrich von Hutten, Seydlitz, Lutzow, Z23 and Otto von Alvensleben all jumped out of the plane. As soon as the last of them exits the plane, the loadmaster informed the pilots that all shipgirls had jumped and the doors were closed.

The mission starts now.