Welcome back to A Modern Secret. I know it's been a while and I'm sorry. It's not fun to write stories that are very long. From now on, chapters that are not major in story events will be 2,500 words long. But major chapters of the story will be 5,000 words long. So anyway, let's start this show!
Side note: from now on, Commander/Shikikan's name will be Joseph for a more fleshed-out character.
(Disclaimer, my writing still is bad so expect some weird moments.)
Italics=thought
Italics with Underline=Narration and timelapse
Bold=action/command
Underline=information
February 27, 2079, 22:17 Military Time
Location: Coastline Near Juneau, CVN 79 USS John F. Kennedy
The commander has finished eating and is washing all of the dishes. He was halfway through washing the dishes when a ship girl came in.
"My commander, it's nice to be back~". came a voice from a familiar KAN-SEN. "Ah, hello Taihou.". He said while trying to focus on the dishes. "May I help you Shikikan?". She said. He nodded and let her help him.
But he was hiding his thoughts from earlier when he discussed other wisdom cores. It was a matter of secrecy that only some could know about. Not to mention the siren that was with them. So he had to keep quiet with almost all of his ship girls.
But Taihou noticed this and said, "What's the matter Shikikan? Are you nervous?". She said in a curious tone. Shikikan had to react fast to not cause any suspicion. He said "It's nothing, I'm just planning for tomorrow's exercise.
Taihou was a little suspicious of how fast he reacted but ignored it. When they were done, he thanked Taihou for her help. She promptly blushed a bit before leaving.
Shikikan promptly sighed a breath of relief and went to his room. But when he got there, somebody had got in. He braced himself and saw Akagi fighting with Baden-Württemberg.
He leaped into action and pulled the two ships away from each other. They were arguing about who would sleep with the commander. He was confused at why they would argue about something as simple as sleeping with a person.
Nevertheless, he negotiated a compromise. Both would be able to sleep with him. It was an unorthodox thing to do, but it was the only way for them to not get hurt in any way.
In his bathroom, he ran diagnostics on himself. The data revealed that his core instability had gone down 10% compared to his last diagnostic check of core instability at 67%. He remembered that to lower core instability, he had to bond with his fellow ships and officers.
Flashback: A man sits on his bed, scrolling down on his phone with pages that are filled with news about political matters. Joseph was not a fan of politics however so he ignored most of it.
A man then walked in. He was almost similar to Joseph except for his hair which was black instead of Joseph's brown.
"Hey brother! You lookin at the news?". Said the black-haired man. "Yeah brother, how've you been?". Said, Joseph. "Pretty good, but it's boring sitting around at Norfolk". Gerald responded. "What about you?"
"I've been at a port, being fitted out before I do my trials.". Joseph said to his older brother. "So only four more years until you are commissioned?." asked Gerald.
"It will take at least 2 years," said Joseph. Gerald gave him a small smirk and said "Well, I guess it's nearly time to serve.". Joseph simply nodded at his brother's statement.
"Don't worry brother, I will always be there for you," said Gerald, who was walking towards the door of the barracks. "No matter if my core is hidden in the depths of the sea," Gerald said before walking out the door.
Shikikan then woke up from his sleep and his dream about his past. He simply scratched his head and said "What was that?". He then remembered that he was in bed with Akagi and Baden-Württemberg.
He wondered what to do in this situation. If he moved, he would risk waking up both of them. But, if he stayed there, he would break his tight schedule. He contemplated the issue but eventually chose to get out of bed.
He moved slowly and carefully, making sure that both of the girls were asleep. "Should I continue with my morning warmup? I now have people on my ship and I don't want to wake them up." he thought to himself.
At around 7:30 Military Time, he got on his clothes and went to his ship's flight deck. He then remembered that on Monday, he would usually fly an F-35 to keep his reaction time quick.
He reluctantly summoned an F-35 out of red cubes and got in the cockpit. He checked all of its systems, even though he didn't have to. Because he summoned it and it automatically comes fully maintained.
The F-35 took off of the secondary runway. But, the local area was filled with islands and mountains. So, Joseph had to maneuver between the islands and mountains. Not to mention how fast the F-35 was, it made maneuvering very difficult.
This also created a ton of noise, which caused what Shikikan feared. It woke up almost all of the KAN-SEN, except for Akagi and Baden-Württemberg who still thought Shikikan was still in bed.
"What's going on?!" Bismarck said while frantically putting on her clothes. Prinz Eugen then responded with "It's most likely a siren attack, don't worry.".
After they get ready for the day
The KAN-SEN of the crimson axis headed to the deck of the ship, only to see a mysterious aircraft soaring across the sky.
"What is that aircraft, it doesn't look like any we know of?!" Graf Zeppelin exclaimed. None of the other KAN-SEN could muster up a response to her question.
"Should we fire upon it?" Tirpitz asked. "Nein, that aircraft isn't hostile yet," Bismarck said to her sister.
After a debate among themselves, the Iron Blood KAN-SEN decided to wait until the aircraft made a move.
Meanwhile with the commander (Joseph)
"It's nice to be up in the air after so long," he thought to himself before maneuvering through the clouds. "I wonder if the girls are still sleeping?" he thought after performing a barrel roll.
After a few minutes, Joseph was ready to perform some more difficult maneuvers between the mountains.
Most of these maneuvers he performed were located in the area known as the Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve. However, a small portion of his maneuvers took place a little bit west of the Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve.
What was located to the west of the national park were mountains. The largest of them was Mount Fairweather, which was a little taller than 15,000 ft. With Lituya Mountain in second at around 12,000 ft.
It was a daunting task for the commander, but he managed to complete all of the maneuvers without any mistakes, or damage to his aircraft.
After this training session, he started to head back to his ship. By now, the Iron Blood has figured out how to read the radar system on his ship's command bridge.
They had figured out that the unidentified aircraft was the commander, but they could not figure out what his motive for flying was. So all they could do was wait until he was back aboard.
With the Iron Blood
"When will this slave come back to his master?!". Deutschland impatiently said. "Calm down Deutschland, he's probably coming back right now," Nimi said.
"Wait, I see him right now!" Tirpitz exclaimed as she was looking with her binoculars. Bismarck then looked at the approaching aircraft and widened her eyes.
"He's not just coming back, he's on a course to crash into us! Take cover!". Bismarck exclaimed as she ducked under the ship's controls.
Every Iron Blood ship on the bridge braced and waited for the aircraft to smash into the ship bridge. But it never came, Joseph had pulled up before he crashed into his ship.
Recognizing his dangerous approach to land, he then decided to use his aircraft's VTOL abilities. He slowed down to where he was right next to the bridge. Then, he slowly maneuvered his aircraft onto the deck.
The Iron Blood girls then realized that they were unharmed and that they heard loud aircraft sounds at first zooming by them. Then outside the aircraft carriers bridge.
When they got up, they saw an aircraft that looked similar to the sirens. But they saw the markings on the aircraft that signaled that it was from the Eagle Union.
They immediately came down from the aircraft carrier's bridge to greet their commander and to scold him for leaving them on the ground.
With the Commander (Joseph)
He was in the middle of climbing out of his F-35 when Iron Blood KAN-SEN interrupted him and grabbed him. But his instinct was to shove and fight as he was taught in the Eagle Union.
He nearly did so before realizing that the only ones on his ship were his fellow KAN-SEN, a siren, and himself. Then he stopped himself from hitting one of them, but it did not mean that he made contact with one as he nudged a KAN-SEN in the chest.
That KAN-SEN turned out to be Prinz Eugen who in her usual teasing demeanor said: "Ehe~ seems you can't hold yourself back~." The commander quickly apologized for the incident and greeted the Iron Blood.
Most had nothing else to say other than greeting the commander back. But Admiral Hipper had a lot to say. "You dummkopf! What would you do if you crashed into your ship?!" Hipper complained while she tugged on his clothes.
"Ok, ok! I won't do any more dangerous maneuvers near this ship!" Joseph said. "You better!". Hipper said to him.
While Hipper and Joseph were having a chat, the rest of the Iron Blood was admiring his aircraft. They were curious about how he had a technologically advanced aircraft.
"This fighter of yours is very interesting Kommandant." Graf Zeppelin said. The rest of the Iron Blood agreed with her statement.
"My only question is how did you acquire this aircraft?" Graf continued. The commander knew that this would take a while to explain in full, but he did it anyway.
"Well, for starters I was built to be able to summon these aircraft," he said to the Iron Blood. "Kind of how KAN-SEN aircraft carriers summon planes.". "But since I was built with a core and not a cube, I had a larger roster of abilities at my disposal." He continued.
He was then interrupted by Prinz Eugen, who asked him what his abilities were. He then said that his list of abilities was that he was able to summon and individually command each fighter he summoned, handle technology from the modern age, and be able to revive cores to a human state. And also all the abilities that KAN-SEN made from wisdom cubes.
The Iron Blood was in disbelief at this newfound information. But this caused more questions to flood their minds. Why did he keep this a secret for so long? Were there any others like him? They all had their questions but pushed them aside for now. They had more matters to attend to.
Not before Eugen asked one final question, which was partly satirical. She asked, "Do we have permission to fly your aircraft?". This shocked most of the Iron Blood, who thought that flying an aircraft that was much more advanced was a death wish.
But the commander took it seriously and said that she and a few other Iron Blood could be able to fly if they wanted to. The Iron Blood leadership was ecstatic at the news and accepted it.
"How many of us can fly?" Bismarck asked the commander. He stated that a squad of 4 would be allowed, but he would be in the squad. Making the total count for members 5.
The Iron Blood chose Prinz Eugen, Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Graf Zeppelin to fly. Partly because they were more enthusiastic than all the other Iron Blood.
The commander then handed over a badge with the german eagle with wings on both sides to the 4. He then asked if one of them can throw it. Bismarck threw hers first and red cubes surrounded it and formed an F-35 with the iron cross on it. Then the others followed suit.
Joseph also mentioned that Germany had ordered some F-35s in the past, but he didn't know if they received them or not.
The Iron Blood KAN-SEN then asked if they could have a test flight to understand how to fly. Joseph said, "Normally it's required to take a course on what to do while you are flying. But we don't have the books to do so.".
He essentially said that due to a lack of materials, he would allow them to fly. And while he had some reservations, he assumed that since they were not normal humans that they would be able to survive a crash.
And so he ran over the basics of flying a modern aircraft, talking with the Iron Blood and explaining how to control the fighter. And after their quick run-over of the basics of flying, all of them got into their aircraft and flew into the sky.
The Iron Blood had a rough time adapting to the jet aircraft that was the F-35. But they eventually got used to it and started learning how to be in a formation and many different aerial maneuvers.
As he chatted with his Iron Blood KAN-SEN through the radio. He wondered about how the Eagle Union and Royal Navy were doing without him. Where would they be right now? And most importantly, how are they doing right now?
He contemplated these questions but still paid attention to his surroundings. And while he was busy teaching the Iron Blood to do aerial maneuvers, something caught his eye.
A giant fleet of battleships, carriers, cruisers, and destroyers sailing alongside the shore. And they looked like they were looking for something or someone.
And that's it for this chapter! Again, I'm sorry this took an immeasurably long amount of time. But I will try to get at least a chapter each month. And I am somewhat surprised that this story is still being found! So, again thank you for your support of this story.
Music recommendation: https/youtu.be/rr1FBtYo6ng (Tyme Flyes When You're Havin' Rum)