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The commander moved with urgency. He had ordered that a rotation be put in so that the Kansen could have their weaponry upgraded to the new specifications devised by Observer Alpha. The whole plan was that everyone would be rotated back in to get things done, and he left Albert and the rest of the logistics staff to work out the details according to his needs. He did everything he could to stress the urgency, not that Albert or the other administrative officers needed any reminders.
All of them were here when Chariot threatened the island, after all.
The commander himself had to sign all of the orders for this, and for a while, it was the busiest that he had ever been as a commander of the fleet. There was every reason to believe that Zero was planning for something they had never seen the Sirens deploy before, so it was imperative that everyone’s weapons and training were in tip-top shape for what was coming next.
Based on what he learned from Royal Fortune and what data Observer was able to provide him, that would require some new forms of training.
The commander went out onto the water to observe the latest exercise he’d had to devise, which was training his people to attack fortifications that were being supported by defending ships. They had encountered Siren fortresses a few times before, but given that there was a possibility they were going to have to go on the offensive, spreading that experience to the whole fleet, including members who joined after those operations took place.
Everyone was going to have to know how to do it.
Large mockup targets equipped with automated turrets based on Delaware’s designs played the role of Siren defensive structures while other ships played the role of the defenders. Omitter and Compiler were placed in charge of the “defenses” to simulate how Sirens might defend their strongholds, a major benefit to having them on board with the rest of the fleet, especially now.
His armor made it possible to observe exercises more closely- Even though it didn’t provide him all that much protection from the Siren’s direct fire, it made all the other hazards of the battlefield much less of a concern. He skated around the field as he watched the attack, even coming up close to the mock-up target as it came under pressure from the attackers. He didn’t even flinch as a few splinters from training bombs and destroyed structure bounced off his helmet and armor plates, and soon enough he skated back to get a more distant view.
The commander’s heads-up display told him the direction and location of both “sides” in the mock battle, and being able to just dart around and get a water’s eye view was going to be a big help going forward.
Eventually, the exercise came to a close. The attackers had destroyed all of their targets, but he could still see room to do better. Plus there were some gaps in their tactical understanding that needed to be filled.
He turned his communications on to full blast. “Okay everyone, gather around.”
It didn’t take long for all of the ships to gather nearby, and the commander called Omitter forward. “Okay Omitter, I’d like to explain to the fleet why you ordered several of your destroyers on very close-range suicide runs, since apparently that’s not what people were expecting.”
Omitter smiled, and brushed a hand through her hair. “To defend the will of mighty Zero, the common Siren holds their life only as sacred as though it were a grain of sand, to be washed away in the blood-red tide of battle.” She cleared her throat. “And for the less poetically inclined, Zero considers her ships a lot more fucking expendable than the Anomaly considers the rest of y’all. So you sometimes gotta throw stuff out there in advance. Torpedoes, mines if you’ve got ‘em, even huck depth charges out there.”
Purifier called in. “Yeah, if you say you’re going to fight with everything you’ve got, I expect some of you to Monkey Kong a bitch with your spicy barrels.”
“…Thank you, Purifier.” The commander said, and then turned to face the commander of the attacking side. “Shangri-La!”
“Yes, commander.” The carrier moved forward over the water.
“…Kaga was fairly proud of the time she set the other day in carrying out a similar operation. Her and the rest of the Kido Butai attacked aggressively, and yet you more or less matched their time with what appeared to be a more measured pace.” He said. “Can you tell me how that happened?”
“Timing for effect, commander.” She said. “Plus myself and Hornet carry heavier bombers, so even if we lost some planes in the attack we were able to deliver more payload per plane.” She cleared her throat. “I had recorded the anti-aircraft ability of each of the defending ships, plus an extra adjustment for the defending fortifications. This allowed us to prioritize the elimination of heavy AA targets.” She slipped her pen into the top of her clipboard. “So while there were technically fewer strikes, we were able to deal the same amount of damage in the same amount of time.”
“Thank you, Shangri-La.”
The carrier smiled. “It’s no difficulty. You can expect a similar performance from the Royal Navy carriers tomorrow, seeing as they have developed some exceptional heavy armor-piercing bombs that they are fond of using.”
“All right.” He replied. “I expect all team leaders, including you, Omitter, to submit full reports on the battle and how you plan to implement Omitter’s recommendations into something we can train everyone else to use. All dismissed.”
Once everyone was gone, the commander finally headed back to land, stepping up out of the water. The first thing he was going to do was put his armor away.
At least, that was his plan. He saw Essex talking to Shangri-La for a while, and decided to leave that conversation be until one or both of them left. Eventually, Shangri-La moved on, and Essex jumped a bit when she saw him in his armor. “Geez! Commander, you could scare someone in that thing. I’m not used to seeing you wearing that.”
“Yeah, sorry.” He took off the helmet. “It’s a big help when observing exercises. Less worries about looking at things up close.”
“Yeah, well you still look like a guy that would be on the front of one of Long Island’s video card boxes.” She said. “Right above how it says it lets you have 2 gajillion pixels and enough polygons to make Euclid overdose.”
She wasn’t wrong. The armor gave him a very “generic protagonist” look to people who were more familiar with certain kinds of modern entertainment, but at least the Iris would regard him as a knight in shining armor. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. So, was there something you wanted to talk about?”
“Was just watching the exercise today. Looks like you’re making my sisters knuckle down and hit the books.” She said. “Not that I’m going to knock you for it, we all have to be at our 100% best if we’re going to get anything done. We can’t rely on one hero to get it all done, after all.”
“That was my thinking too.” He replied. “Even with King George and Bismarck having awakened, and a few more of the girls probably leaning that way as time goes on, we still can’t neglect the basics. We didn’t win even those battles just through a duel of champions, we had to put in some real fundamentals to get the job done.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’ve got no problems with the commander doing his commander thing.” She stretched. “…Looks like you were pretty happy with how sis and the others did, though.”
“There are still some things that need to be ironed out, like the Siren willingness to sacrifice expendable units in a defensive situation.” He shook his head. “So, this is going to keep going on until we get it right, just like always. I guess I figure the job of the commander is to make sure the fleet needs to be told what to do as little as possible.”
“You don’t want to have to break out the manual in the middle of battle, yeah.” She said. “Hey, commander? I know you’re doing a bunch of training tomorrow, but would you have a minute to talk about stuff after that?”
“I think I could.” He said. “Thanks to the logistics department, I don’t have to oversee the weapons upgrades myself. Is there something that you want to talk about?”
“Just things, mainly.” She said. “You talk to the other carrier group leaders a lot, and I think Enty wants to take a bit less of a role as the big leader right now. Besides, I want to see what you’re thinking too. I only came here a year after Enty did, so…”
“Maybe I haven’t been as open with you as I would’ve liked.” He rolled his shoulders. “So, where would you like to meet?”
“Just at the racing garage.” She said. “I’ve got my own hobbies, you know?”
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After the morning’s training session, the commander met Essex in the garage near the racetrack, where she was busy working on her motorcycle. She didn’t have a race coming up, but one thing that was true of both machines and people was that they needed regular care or they would break down over time. Essex herself was an avid motorcyclist- Pretty much the only one who could match her on that score was Jamaica.
He waited for her to finish whatever it was she was doing- startling her while she was working on a complex machine didn’t seem like a good way of maintaining their good working relationship.
Eventually, she put down her wrench and looked at him. “There you are! Didn’t hear you.”
“You seemed busy.” He said. “So, what did you want to talk to me about? Did this have something to do with Enterprise?”
“Wha?” She said. “Just because we’re both leading carriers doesn’t mean I think about Enterprise all the time.” She folded her arms, and then pouted. “But yeah, it’s about Enterprise. But not for the reason you think! It’s not because I’m jealous of her or anything, I’ve had plenty of chances to prove my worth since I got here.”
“She’s been acting kinda weird. And I’m not talking about her being brooding or anything, that’s just normal for her.” She sat down on the seat of her motorcycle. “She just isn’t all that interested in leading missions or anything. I don’t think she’s decided to slack off, considering what she wants, I mean, really wants, but you could usually count on her to fight really hard all the time and mope about it later. Something that you know that I don’t?”
“I might.” He said. “She has been maintaining her usual standards of excellence in training, but I think that this has something to do with what me and her talked about a while back.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” She said.
“It’s hard to describe concisely, but she seems to think she’s a drag on you and some of the other carriers. Maybe even other Union ships as a whole. And given my experience with her and the Union fleet… I don’t entirely agree with her, but it’s not like she doesn’t have good reasons to think that, either.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t here the first year. Any deets you can share?” Essex asked.
“Sure, it’s in the record anyway- It’s not like it’s a well-hidden secret.” He looked around the garage- apart from the mess Essex was making while she was fixing her motorcycle, it was fairly clean. “Pretty much the first thing I had to train out of the Union ships in the fleet was that their primary battle tactic was “Protect Enterprise until she pulled off something incredible.” And given that they can’t rely on Enterprise there considering our wide range of operations…”
Essex whistled. “Oh, yeah, that kinda thing.” She sighed. “Yeah, that sounds like the kinda thing that people would do, leaning on a legend. Enty wasn’t even a superweapon back in the old days, she just happened to be at the right places at the right times to rack up a high score.”
“The thing is, Enterprise knows it too. And I think she knows it better than anyone else around her. So, she thinks her legend is dragging other people down.” He scratched his nose. “From what Dr. Anzeel said, she was relieved to hear that King George V was the first Kansen to Awaken, so the state wouldn’t be attached to the Legendary Enterprise and it felt like something that “normal” ships could reach.”
Essex sighed. “So that’s how Enty is, huh… She thinks she’s so legendary that she’s not just aspirational, but unattainable.” She shook her head. “Ahh, not like I’m the best example either, like when I was a huge dork about fighting Enty to a draw and couldn’t believe that she wasn’t holding back.”
“So yeah, that’s what she thinks about. She wants everyone to stop thinking about her legend and be themselves rather than measure themselves against her.” Her replied.
Essex bent over and picked up her wrench. “Enty needs a hobby.” She said. “And I mean, a real hobby other than brooding over legends and the fate of nation. It’s probably not going to be good for Little Enty if mommy Enty is a grumpus too much.”
“Huh…” The commander replied. “Didn’t know you were fond of little Enty.”
“Of course I am, she’s adorable!” Essex said. “And it’s not just me, either.” She then gestured to the garage. “Anyway, Enty isn’t my entire life. I have racing too, and the fact that Enty decided to be a race queen instead of a racer is just kinda proving what you said, right?”
The commander paused. “…Now that I think about it, yeah.”
“Hold on…” Essex ended up lost in thought. “…You know, it feels like Enty likes to play dress-up as a thing.” She quickly took out her phone and started typing in some notes. “Model Enty…? Questions for later.”
The commander shook his head. “Well, I think that Enterprise’s deepest thoughts are only shared with Dr. Anzeel. I’m not even sure I’m privy to everything she’s thinking, but that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t affect her in combat.”
Essex dumped the wrench in a toolbox, then returned to sitting on the seat. “I guess.” She looked at her bike. “Say, commander, you ever think about motorbiking?”
“No.” He said. “…I guess I wasn’t really part of that set, plus nowadays I feel like that’s a bit too dangerous for someone in my position. It’s the perfect sport for the people who have that special combination of being both daring and durable, so I’m not surprised that you and other girls are into this sort of thing.”
“I mean, it’s not like we don’t care about crashing, since we might wreck the bike.” She took a deep breath. “…Anyway, this thing is fixed, so you wanna head over to the trackside?” She held up a cooler. “I brought stuff for both of us.”
He looked at it. “Huh. What would you have done with it if I had to leave suddenly?”
She shrugged. “Probably just invite Jamaica over. She’s usually up for coming to the track. Besides, she seems to think that it’s important for someone who fights for justice to have a motorcycle. Don’t know where that idea came from, but it takes all kinds, right?”
The commander walked out to the side of the track near one of the pit stops, where they sat down to eat. Essex pulled the lid off. “I know this is probably nothing compared to what you get at home, but I had to put together something quick. Lexi helped me out though- Said I probably shouldn’t go too far afield.”
He knew that Essex’s cooking could get “experimental” at times, so he was thankful that Lexi was looking after him when she steered Essex towards convention. She pulled out the half-subs she had put in the cooler, tossing one to the commander. “Anyway, I saw you talking with Shangri-La yesterday. Were you worried about anything?”
“Nah.” She said. “It’s also strange to not worry. I thought the point of being a big sister was telling all of your little sisters things like “Hey! Put that down!” or “You should stop doing that kind of thing or you’ll get in trouble!” Or things like that.” She pulled a soda out of the cooler. “But, Bunker Hill, is Bunker Hill, Shangri-La has her life together, Ticonderoga knows how far she can fool around before she goes too far most of the time, and Intrepid is apparently responsible enough to be an astronaut, so no worries there.” There was a hiss as she popped open a can. “Bonhomme Richard is a bit of a scamp, but the Union decided to put her on television because she’s a cute face for the Kansen.”
“So, she’s the troublemaker?” He asked as he picked up his can. “I mean, I just assume a family with that many siblings has one. I am an only child.”
“Eh. Enough to get up to some antics, but nothing you can stay mad at her about when she says sorry.” She took a long drink from her can. “I would’ve brought beer, but Shangri-La doesn’t like me drinking when the sun is still up. Apparently, there was one time when I went around saying that I was the pirate queen of the world.”
“Well, I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Bonhomme Richard myself- I’ve spent all my time here in the Pacific, and she was assigned to the Atlantic division if I remember right.” He said, keeping the subject on the present. “…Come to think of it, half of your sisters are there.”
“Yeah, we’re all going to have a big family reunion once we get the chance.” She looked out over the track. “Would be great if we could have it here, too. You think you could make it happen, commander?”
“I think so.” He said, and took a bite out of his sandwich. It was a pretty classic Italian sub- Essex had good taste when she wasn’t letting her culinary imagination run away with her. “…I’d like to meet all of them.”
She giggled. “Commander is married to a Royal beauty and he can’t stop wanting to meet cute girls. What is up with you, commander?”
He blushed a bit, and looked down into his sandwich. “I just want to know what the rest of you are like. I love King George V, but meeting new Kansen is also never boring. Whenever I hear that a new one is arriving, I just can’t stop myself from wanting to know about them and what they’re like. You’re a colorful bunch, you know.”
“Huh.” Essex said, and kicked her feet up a bit as she sat on the grass overlooking the track. “Were you always like this, or…”
“Once I realized that you girls weren’t going to bite my head off, yeah.” He drank some of his soda, and then had a thought about what to say next to her. “…And just because Enterprise was already here didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in meeting you and seeing what you would be like.”
Essex blushed and coughed a bit, nearly choking on the bite of sandwich she had just taken. “Mmph! Commander! You need a better sense of timing when you say things like that!”
“Sorry, sorry.” He said. “I mean, I do mean it, though.”
“I know you do, that’s why I choked!” She said, and then held the can in one hand, swishing it around a bit. “…You know, Enty is the one who suggested I take up a hobby. I guess… Maybe she didn’t want me to chase her too close and become like her?”
“I guess it’s time to repay that.” He looked out on the track just in time to see a black motorcycle zoom by. “…Huh, looks like Jamaica decided to join us.”
“Yeah, she comes out here by herself to ride things out of her system sometimes. I mean, I do it too, so I’m not going to judge.” She said. “Akashi gave her a new one because she was tired of Jamaica taking parts from her warehouse to fix the one she built from scratch out of parts she previously took from Akashi’s warehouse.”
“That’s one way to fix the problem.” He said, watching her zoom by again at dangerous speeds. “…Why’d you settle on a motorcycle anyway?”
“Because they’re cool, that’s why!” She said. “…Sometimes you just don’t need a deep reason to do things. Besides, they require work if you own your own, so they’re not something you can forget about if you want to have fun with them.”
Jamiaca zoomed by again. “…Is it just me or is she going even faster?”
“Yeah, that’s normal too. She must be really thinking hard about things if she’s going that fast.”
The commander blinked. “…That seems like a dangerous combination.”
Essex shugged. “I mean, it works for her, right?”
His eyes tried to follow Jamaica as she sped around the track. Even though she was a somewhat ordinary light cruiser in terms of combat ability, she had striking, exotic looks and a daring demeanor that made her a natural sportswoman. There was no need to think too hard on what she might do after the fighting was over. “It really does.”
Essex put on a higher-pitched voice. “Aaaah! The pervert commander keeps staring at other girls and forgetting he’s married!” She coughed a bit and went back to normal. “That’s what I would say if I was Hammann, but King George must really trust you if she lets you out of the house on a base with hundreds of beautiful women.”
“I mean, that’s the cornerstone of it all.” He finished his drink as Jamaica made another pass. “…If you don’t feel like you can trust your partner, what was the point?”
“Huh…” Essex finished her sandwich. “So… marriage is like a battle line, then?”
“Ehhhh….” The commander said, taking an awfully long time to chew on his next bit of sandwich. “That’s… Not how I’d put it.”
“Hmmm…” Essex went, and leaned back on the grass. “…Looks like the rest of us have a lot to learn, huh.”
“I want to give you all the chance to learn. That’s part of what all this training is about- So that when the time comes, we can finish the fight.” He finished his lunch. “…Looks like Jamaica’s slowing down.”
“Yeah, she must be finished thinking.” Essex said.
The commander stretched out. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to be going soon. I hope you got what you were looking for this afternoon.”
“Huh?” She scratched her cheek. “…I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, but I did get some things I wanted to hear, so it was worth it to me.”
Jamaica began to pull up. “…I’ll at least stay long enough to say hello and goodbye to Jamaica, I don’t want to look like I was trying to leave without saying a word to her.”
“This is why they made you the commander, isn’t it? I mean, whoever did that.” Essex said. “It’s because someone figured out you’d be okay with us knowing you, right?”
“…Maybe it is.” His eyes turned to Jamaica when she got off her bike, and he got up to greet her and compliment her on her riding before going.
For the afternoon he had another training exercise, this time with the Iron Blood, and he was as focused on that as he was during the morning’s exercise with the Royal Navy.
He had considered that he had never really asked Shinano for the full details on why she and the others had decided that he was the man for the job, but another part of him told him that he didn’t need to anymore- All of the reasons that the Knsen came up with on their own to follow him were all the reasons that he needed.