Chapter 1: Outward Bound
Hey everybody! After a long hiatus from this site I have decided to return, this time with an Azur Lane fanfict! It's been a while since I've written anything creative, so this chapter may be a little rough around the edges in terms of grammar and pacing, but hopefully I will be improving as I continue the story. Enjoy!
That cold, sadistic grin was the last thing Pvt Daniel Bailey saw before he woke up with a jolt.
"A-are you alright sir?" said the secretary. Daniel saw her face was full of concern. He waved his hand, as if to reassure her everything was okay.
"Yeah… Just a nightmare." He grunted. The secretary frowned, getting up from behind her desk and walked over to where Daniel was sitting.
"It must've been a pretty bad one, you were mumbling and everything. Do you need some water or something?" She put a hand on his shoulder. Daniel sighed. He really did not want anybody's sympathy right now, but he didn't want to be impolite neither.
"Sure, I would love one please."
The secretary smiled and left the room. Daniel laid back and closed his eyes, listening to the clacking of her heels as they faded away down the corridor outside. He let out a long sigh, rubbing his face with his hands. He was already stressed with this sudden appointment with the admiral, and this dream was not helping whatsoever.
It had only been a month or so since that dreadful day. They were calling it the Day of the Black Sun, after one of the symbols used by the more fanatical members of the Iron Blood. And they were calling that thing the "Ubermensch", some sort of conceptual super-being devised by a pre-Iron Blood philosopher or something. It suited it, he thought. Most of his memories were foggy of that day, but he had been having nightmares since then. They weren't very clear neither, but they all followed a similar narrative to the one that was generally known in the Eagle Union Navy: A forward operational base was taken over by a platoon of Marines, who were holding it temporarily for the rest of the Army to formally take control and establish it as a permanent base. However, only three days in, the entire platoon was massacred by an unknown assailant. Records of what the relief force found a day or so later were redacted from the record, as they were deemed too graphic. Daniel was the only one they found alive and whole.
Daniel looked down at the purple, heart-shaped medal he had pinned to his blue uniform. They had given it to him a few days afterwards in a ceremony for 'wounds sustained in the line of duty'. He stared at the man engraved into it. Even though he knew it was supposed to be a side portrait of an old Eagle Union military commander, he could not help but feel as if the man was coldly rejecting him. As if he could have saved some of the lives of his fellow Marines, but he didn't.
"Goddammit, give yourself a break," he thought. The Navy psychologists had already told him that he didn't need to feel guilty about the deaths of his comrades. Anybody else in his place, even some of the most decorated Marines, would've been as equally powerless in such a situation. That didn't sound very helpful to him at all, but they were kind of right. The Ubermensch felt unstoppable. Even if he did try to save at least one person, he would've been cut down instantly, and that person would still be dead.
His thoughts were interrupted by the clacking of heels again. The door opened, and the secretary reappeared with a paper cup of ice-cold water. She handed it to him with a comforting smile and went back to her desk. Daniel took a long drink out of the cup. He realised he hadn't had a drink that day, and the liquid felt soothing down his throat. He quickly gulped what was left of it and looked around his sofa he was sitting on to find a bin. The secretary got up and walked over to him.
"I'll take that from you. It seemed like you really needed it," she said, chuckling.
"Yeah," Daniel replied with a chuckle of his own, "Thanks." She smiled and walked back to her desk, dropping the paper cup in the bin next to her as she sat back down again. At that moment, the phone on her desk rang. She picked it up, listened for a moment, uttered an "okay", and put it back down, looking over at Daniel.
"He's ready to see you now."
Daniel nodded and rose from the sofa. He opened the frosted glass door next to the secretary's desk and entered the admiral's office.
Unlike the simple, monotonous décor of the secretary's room, and the rest of the Eagle Union Naval Headquarters, the admiral's room was very well furnished. The walls were fitted with dark wood panelling that went around the entire room. On the left side were several oil paintings of previous admirals, all looking very stern. Under them was a white, marble table in a French Baroque style with a collection of crystal decanters. Most of them contained that amber hue that was characteristic of scotch and bourbon. Several tumblers were also arranged on a silver platter that also was baroque. On the right side, several large bay windows opened onto the front of the headquarters, where Daniel could just see the flags of the allied forces on the manicured lawn, the eagle crest of the Eagle Union and the crowned lion of the Royal Navy dominating over the others.
"Come over here, Private," said a gravelly voice. Daniel looked to the end of the room to see the admiral sitting at a large, mahogany desk. He looked somewhere in his seventies, his face in a constant frown due to years of stress and long nights of strategizing and planning. Though he was balding, his white beard was short and well-groomed, showing a man of careful and consistent self-care. Unlike his face, his uniform had almost no wrinkles at all, and was covered in numerous medals for past victories now lost to recent memory. Like his appearance, the desk was also well organized, his workload for the day neatly stacked to his left, and a fountain pen perfectly symmetrical to the desk on his right. The only other thing on the desk was a small flag of the Eagle Union, the smaller brother of an even bigger one just behind his left shoulder.
The admiral extended a gloved hand and gestured to a small, curved chair in front of the desk. Daniel quickly walked up to it and sat down. Even though it was a leather chair, it wasn't very well-padded, making him squirm a little to find a more comfortable pose. Despite sitting in a large, noticeably softer leather chair, the Admiral leaned forwards with his elbows on the desk, his fingers interlocked as he stared at Daniel.
"I'm supposing you're a little confused as to why a man in my position would be interested in a private like yourself," said the admiral, his eyes still steadily looking at Daniel.
"I guess I am," replied Daniel, wondering why the man was staring at him so intently. There wasn't anything about himself that he felt stood out on his face or anything.
"I'm sure you're aware of your… unique situation?"
"You mean the Day of the Black Sun?"
"Is that what they are calling it now?" groaned the admiral, finally lying back in his chair. "Honestly, the officers tend to have too much imagination sometimes." He reached out towards the stacked pile of papers and produced a sheet, setting it in front of Daniel. Daniel looked down at it, and read the title:
PERMANENT CHANGE OF STATION
"What the hell does this mean?" said Daniel, staring up at the admiral, who had crossed his arms.
"You're being reassigned to another base."
"Where?"
"That's classified."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. When somebody uses the word 'classified' in the Navy, it meant one of either two things: espionage, where if you die or are captured everybody forgets you, or something big.
"Your exclusive experience has led me and others in the navy department to believe you would be a valuable asset for Project Hippolyta," said the admiral, getting up from his chair and moving to the nearest window.
"Project Hippolyta?"
"A classified operation working in a remote location known only to a select few. We have come into possession of certain… resources. We have a team of people working on building some prototype naval weaponry using these resources that we think might help us win the war."
Daniel sat back in his chair, shocked at what the admiral just said. Prototype weaponry? That may win the war? No wonder this shit was classified.
"And what's in it for me there?"
"You'll be assigned to a support company of Eagle Union Marines to aid these prototypes in experimental scenarios, and eventually military operations."
"Why just a support company?"
The admiral turned back to Daniel, "These prototypes are said to be operable by themselves, but we still want some 'human' elements working with them instead of us sending them out by themselves. God knows if they might turn on us or something."
"Human? What are these weapons, robots or something?"
"You'll see what I mean when you arrive. I've got you on the next supply ship that's heading to the project's location. All you need to do now is sign the PCS form." He returned to the desk and picked up the fountain pen, handing it to Daniel. Daniel paused for a moment, the pen hovering over the paper where he needed to sign and looked up at the admiral.
"Do I have a say in the matter?"
The admiral shook his head. Daniel sighed.
"Fuck it."
He quickly scribbled his signature and pushed the paper back to the admiral, who promptly filed the paper away back into the stack exactly where he pulled it from. He smiled; the same, fake smile used by politicians when talking to each other sociably.
"That will be all, private."
Daniel got up, offered a quick salute and turn his back to the admiral, heading for the door while deep in thought. Exclusive experience? How does surviving a massacre help one of the Navy's science projects that is supposed to win us the war? Whatever the case, it was at least reassuring that he will not be going directly back into the meat-grinder that was the front line. He had enough of reality for a while.
The secretary looked up from her work as Daniel entered the waiting room again, offering up a smile to the private.
"Was everything okay in there?"
Suddenly realising he was being talked to, Daniel snapped out of his contemplation and looked down at the secretary.
"U-Uh yea, everything went fine, thanks," stammered Daniel. He nodded and weakly smiled at the secretary. He turned and made his way out of the office into the white corridors of the Naval Headquarters. He thought about how much more genuine that woman's smile was compared to the one he got from the admiral, and realised he might be happy being far away from stiff officers like the admiral.
For the first time in a while, Pvt. Daniel Bailey didn't feel too much like shit.