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The commander was having a meeting with the girls that were part of his inner circle, he trusted them deeply and cared for them as if they were his family. But he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he had been having more meetings in the last couple weeks than when they had found signs of a Siren superstructure in the midst of the Scapa Flow.
That thought brought some dark memories he would rather not recall, lest he risked being unable to face Belfast or anyone of the Royal Navy without feeling like he should apologize for his own perceived misgivings.
“Then we agree on going to the Doctor's laboratory?” King George said with a slightly exasperated tone.
“To raid the place?” Akashi queried, which sparked some murmuring in the room.
“No… we only agreed on heading that way to search for the Doctor. We haven’t decided if we are raiding the place.” King George sighed in response.
“Yet~” The minty teasingly replied.
The request brought by the little girl, Song, had brought a plethora of issues and doubts regarding their options on the matter.
It wasn’t really as simple as the commander asking them to blindly go into the facility.
Due to its status as a secret research facility, even with a valid reason to go, if they went without following the proper procedures would be tantamount to enacting an unprovoked attack to sanctioned ground of another Nation.
In this particular case it would be of two different nations, and while Richelieu and Clemenceau had probably enough clout, and political resources in their own government to proceed with the operation, everyone present from the Eagle Union, be Enterprise, New Jersey or even the commander himself, they were considered to be in the middle of the chain of command of the Eagle Union, at best.
Now that the Senator had been declared missing, that put the commander in a rather precarious situation in which such a bold move, as was sortieing towards a research base of the Eagle Union, would complicate his standing and put his motivations in question.
There were of course proper ways and channels to officially create an appointment to whoever would be in charge of the Facility.
But that would take months of navigating through red tape, without taking into account that the higher ups in the Eagle Union would most likely go into endless circles of cajolery regarding who had the rights to put their name on the folder showing the results of the Doctor’s research.
All of that was time that the commander didn’t have the luxury of letting it go to waste.
If Song was correct, and the Doctor had truly survived the Siren attack, and made his way back to the lab, according to her, he would then spend less than two weeks making his own arrangements before simply moving onto a different secret location, for all means and purposes disappearing.
“Akashi…” The commander warned the Sakuran minty cat. “Even if our operation ends up with the need to defend ourselves, and if we also end up seizing all materials and personnel, it will do us no favors if the word ‘raid’ is even mumbled by any of us.”
“But we will be retrieving all the materials and personnel, right?” The green cat insisted.
Half the room sighed at this, almost the same way the commander did.
He then scratched behind Unbreakable’s left ear, as the Rigging was sitting right beside him, it was something that he had grown fond of doing, there was a certain feeling of calmness and belonging he perceived from the rigging when he did it, which eased his concerns about the praetor rigging feeling left out or anxious.
“Depending on what we find, and who we find, it will set our course of action, any new not-seen-before materials or research will be reviewed by us and then, most likely be -confiscated-.”
“As long as we agree on that, nya!” The entrepreneur cat said, obviously already planning what to do with any new research or materials found.
While it would have been rather romantic, and even worthy of a small novel of some sort, the commander didn’t really hold a Hegemonic grasp over Azur Lane, he understood that every Kansen had a free will as well as opinions of their own. He greatly respected their choices, as such, there were many times when he simply had to give orders regarding operations and exercises. But, there were other moments where would find himself explaining his plans and trying his best to convince others, to reach a compromise, and in cases such as this one, to make certain concessions.
This was such a situation.
After all, what he was proposing was to act out an unsanctioned military operation on Eagle Union grounds. It might sound great on paper, but he would rather not become as tyrannical as to ask those working under him to blindly obey his orders without questioning him, or understanding what was at stake.
**
In the end, almost everyone was convinced by the various arguments available and ended up agreeing to make a trip to the secret research facility where Song had been born.
Not too weirdly enough, deciding if Azur Lane would take action had been a much shorter decision than trying to decide if the little girl Song would accompany them or not. In the end the girl had to make her own arguments on the matter. She had special access codes to enter the facility, which would allow them easy access, at the very least this would mean they wouldn’t have to brute force their way over the elevator checkpoints.
The safety levels of the laboratory had been brought to question. When they first arrived at the place, the commander noticed several murder holes and various places where entrapments could be set.
Not that he had seen the Doctor’s research as well as the weapons he had created, he was certain that there was equipment capable of defending the place against siren attacks.
And if the Doctor was as paranoid as Song had claimed he was, the weaponry was surely up to a level where it could hurt Kansen too.
In the end, they brought the little girl with them. As she herself reminded them, she was not merely a regular girl, but a concept made manifest. Vestal had even agreed with her, albeit begrudgingly, that the girl was at least as strong as a submarine Kansen, and would be safe in most scenarios. She also insisted that without her access codes, they would more than likely have to crack open the entrance, losing valuable time as well as putting everyone within the facility on edge.
They had arranged 3 small groups to go for the operation. Two more than it was advisable for what they were meant to do on paper, and still less than would have been ideal on the commander’s opinion.
So far, every event that had happened around the Doctor or song had triggered a swift and heavy-handed response by the sirens. As such, the commander felt like it would be better to play it safe and go with a strong force of their own.
Bringing over 3 small fleets, coming with competent fighters to help them in case the sirens decided to appear again. As well as additional people specialized on certain aspects of technology and infiltration, just in case they had to break firewalls to solve issues such as the lack of communication within the facility, for such cases, Sheffield as well as Leonardo Davinci came along.
Their own research department had developed some countermeasures for scenarios such as the one posed by the research facility, with the only real reason for not deploying it before being that they needed to know that they would encounter such a situation where they would find themselves underground. More like a device, it was almost like a commanding tent, with cable reels meant to deploy in order to hold a physical line of communication even when going underground, as well as antennas that worked as repeaters and relays within the same system.
Da Vinci, Helena and TB were all quite familiar with the system, so among the 3 of them they could set it to work once they reached the research facility’s island.
The other 3 teams consisted of groups that were quite familiar with both defensive and offensive tactics as well as with each other. On paper, they weren’t the strongest fighters that Azur Lane had, which was more or less one of the basic points of this selection, in order to not bring onto the research facility a force that could be able to take down a fortified Vietnamese island, or two. But they were quite the competent force, regardless of what specs might say.
Not only that, but all the girls that formed part of this group had also taken to heart the words of the conceptual girl, Song. All of them had achieved a breakthrough in their training, be it manifesting new powers through training with some of the weapons from their armory, or had developed some sort of profound connection with who they were or even with the spiritual entities from their home countries.
The commander was actually somewhat concerned about the strides in developments and growth they had reached within the last weeks. He couldn’t shake the idea that all their improvements were truly due to Song’s influence.
This was merely one among the many changes that had come and were foreseeable within Azur Lane’s future, merely by the presence of Song and Doctor Bethencourt.
Perhaps too many changes.
Now that the commander thought about it, he once again had the lingering feeling that there had been many things happening at the same time as of late, too many and too close to each other, giving them barely any room for a respite or even looking properly at what they were currently doing as a whole. With the research team being the most obvious example. Leonardo Davinci became part of their group but under the condition that she would rest during the first day of the trip to the research facility.
“Azuma, what’s the status on Song?” The commander asked the Sakuran cruiser, taking advantage that she had dropped earlier to Enterprise’s vessel in order to share some tea.
After the doctor’s departure, Azuma had refused to stay away from the little girl, spending a lot of time along with her. She would usually be with her whenever she had the free time for it, spending their time in mealtimes or even visiting Vestal together, with the only notable exemptions being when the Sakuran lady took it upon herself to bring tea and refreshments to the commander. As things were there was probably no one else who had a better idea of the current state of the girl.
“She remains quiet for the most part. I can see that she is truly convinced that the Doctor is alive, but I fear there is something more she is not telling me, something that obviously bothers her” Azuma said.
“Do you think she is nervous about seeing the doctor?” The commander dared to ask, in a much more positive line of thought than what he honestly believed true.
“I… I am not sure, commander. The girl is obviously smarter than what we have given her credit for. But at the same time, she is also not mature emotionally speaking. My best guess is that her mind is a turmoil of ideas and sentiments about both her actions as well as those of the Doctor.”
Azuma had thought it on a much deeper level than the commander. He couldn’t help himself when it came to the little girl. In his eyes she did look like an ordinary girl and most of her concerns seemed to be centered about her father.
After what amounted to years within the special virtual reality setting created by Akashi, raising TB’s emotional development and knowledge, time in which he had become more or less her parental figure, the commander had grown weak to such displays of emotional turmoil by a girl of her age. Knowing that she was not only in such a troubling stage of her life, but also knowing that she was probably as emotionally intense as the Kansen, truly made him think he wanted to help the little girl.
By the Doctor’s words, the little girl Song was the living embodiment of humanity’s potential and growth. With that in mind, it sort of made sense that her influence would affect the Kansen, who were not only the embodiments of humanity’s warships, but also their ideologies, hopes and dreams. In more than one sense, the Kansen were much more human than most, more intense, more passionate, although in some very particular cases, they were more fragile in certain aspects too.
“Commander! I have visuals on Siren ships” Royal Fortune said over the coms, interrupting the commander's thoughts.
“Royal Fortune?! Are those Submarines?” The commander asked, concern obvious in his voice.
Royal Fortune along with U-556 and Shigure, had gone even slightly ahead of their reconnaissance planes, in order to scout for any possible ambushes or anything of concern. The way things had gone in the last few encounters, their orders were to come back and report as soon as they encountered anything out of the ordinary.
The fact that it had been Royal fortune who made the report, rather than Shigure, who had an uncanny knack to sniff out Sirens in hiding, most likely meant that there was a sizable underwater siren force waiting to jump on them.
“Er… I mean, they are submarines now underwater~” Royal fortune replied in an odd shanty-like voice, with some humor to her words “Making their not-so-merry way to the locker~”
“Commander, there are more siren wreckages on the surface too! They were truly lucky that they didn’t get to face us!.” Shigure added interrupting Royal Fortune.
“Er… They are right, commander.” U-556 spoke now “From what I can see there are at least two dozen wrecks of various Siren ships just on the front of the island we are heading to.”