Bailey looked around her. No one had heard her swear under her breath. In her mind, Bailey had shouted her words to the world. She fumbled with the paper and read it again. Of course, it still told her that Ruth Bailey Kelly was the executive officer of a battleship.

She was second-in-command of a battleship! Somehow, she'd managed to pull off getting placed into the bridge crew of one of biggest, baddest ships afloat.

But even as Bailey's excitement built up, her dismay crept up behind it. Even though it was an XO position, it was the XO of Colorado – the ship that was regarded as the worst battleship assignment in the Atlantic fleet. Sure, some cruisers and almost every destroyer had lower-ranking crews, but Colorado was where overzealous students were sent to fail in massive and visible ways.

Be happy, damn you. It's still a battleship. It's the worst battleship, but it's a battleship that you're in charge of.

Bailey couldn't walk onto the bridge of a ship hating it. At least, she couldn't look like she was hating it. Maybe she didn't know the first thing about ships, but Bailey did understand a large amount of leadership theory. A proper leader never shows dismay or contempt for her subordinates. Swallowing her feelings, she trudged toward Colorado's berth.

To Bailey, all ships looked more or less the same outside of their size. Some had bigger turrets and guns, some had many funnels, some had intricate-looking masts while others had large superstructures. All of them wore the same haze-grey paint scheme with white numbers on the bow. Because she couldn't recognize Colorado on sight, Bailey consulted the large directory board that showed a map of the training yard and what ships occupied what berths. It took a few moments of searching to find the position of Colorado. The ship was docked in berth F-6 alongside Nevada. Bailey didn't know why, but knowing that Nevada and therefore Anna would be nearby calmed her.

A ten-minute walk took Bailey to berth F-6. Colorado loomed in front of her. The ship's massive scale felt even larger as she walked past the bow. Words couldn't describe the sheer size of the battleship. All Bailey could muster in her mind was "big." Dwarfed by the steel behemoth, she could almost feel the raw power of the ship.

Walking up the gangplank was another adventure. The metal clattered under Bailey's feet. She had never been afraid of heights, but the shaking of the walkway was unnerving. It felt like forever, but Bailey was finally able to relax when she was on the deck and onboard the ship.

Her ship.

Bailey was on board her ship.

The deck beneath her feet felt solid and safe. In movies, ships always bucked and swayed and rolled about as though they were on the verge of sinking. Instead, the deck was steady, and Bailey wouldn't have believed that she was on a ship at all. The teak deck boards were a homely light brown, and the gray steel almost felt inviting. Bailey could tell her ship was strong, and she felt safe. She felt confident.

Perhaps what everyone had said about Colorado was wrong. Maybe they were just rumors, myths that ran deep through years of students. How could they be anything but?

After she snapped out of her little trance, Bailey worked her way to the bridge. Or at least, she tried to. Bailey wandered the open decks for several minutes before she found herself a deck higher and roughly amidships, aft of the forward funnel. The deck here was still fairly open, although not as open as the part of the ship she had boarded on (which was on the starboard side, near the forward main battery). Not knowing how to navigate on a ship, Bailey had hoped to find someone, but no one was on deck. Even if she had found someone, Bailey lacked the words or understanding to even know where she wanted to go. She only knew that ships were controlled from a place called the bridge, and seeing as Bailey was the XO, she figured that was where she should go. Out of options, she decided to brute-force the matter. Bailey found a set of exterior ladders and began to climb. She assumed that the bridge would be somewhere up high.

It took four decks worth of climbing to get to the top of the ladders. Up here, Bailey found what looked like a massive searchlight to her left and the foremast to her right. Of course, she didn't know what the foremast was, only that it was a massive lattice of steel that went up a fair distance. Things that went up like that on ships were called masts, so Bailey decided it must be a mast. Further to her right was a large rectangular box that looked like some kind of crewed area. Upon further inspection, the structure – Bailey knew it wasn't a "building" because ships don't have buildings – had two doors on the closest side. Both of them were open. She could hear voices inside.

"Hello?" Bailey asked as she stepped inside.

A group of girls turned and looked at the newcomer. One in particular with coffee-brown hair and bright, happy eyes spoke in a cheerful voice that reminded Bailey of Anna's. Bailey recognized her as the girl she'd seen gushing about getting the battleship assignment. The girl extended a hand as she spoke.

"Hey hey! Who might you be?"

"I am Bailey Kelly. You are?" Bailey responded as she shook the stranger's hand.

"Captain Danielle Davis! I don't know of any Bailey on the roster, sorry."

"Ah…"

"You wouldn't be Ruth Kelly, our executive officer, would you?" Another girl interjected.

"I am. I would really prefer you not call me Ruth, though."

Danielle clapped a hand on Bailey's shoulder as though they weren't total strangers who had never met before, never mind the two most senior officers on a battleship. "Alright, XO Bailey! On that note, I'd prefer you call me Dani!"

Dani?! What in the hell kind of captain lets herself be called Dani?

Bailey kept her thoughts to herself. "Okay… Dani… Well, who else am I with here?"

The girls went around and introduced themselves. The thin girl with dark brown hair was Faith Reed. She was the Chief Artillery Officer. Nicole Clark was the Chief Torpedo Officer. Jess Meir was the Chief Navigator and helmsman. Her black-rimmed glass gave her somewhat of a "nerdy-cute" look, and it struck Bailey as odd that someone like her would be entrusted with something as powerful as steering a massive battleship. Granted, Dani was oddly informal herself, and she was somehow the captain of such a ship.

"Great! Now we have our full bridge crew!" Dani said. She seemed physically incapable of being unhappy. Unlike Anna's pleasantness, Dani was more in-your-face in her way of exuding joy. "I can't wait to get out to sea."

Jess had a slight smile on her face. Bailey could tell she was fairly nervous with the whole situation, which was understandable. "I can't wait either. I don't know what steering will feel like for real."

"I just hope we get to fire the main battery soon. Sixteen inches oughta make a hell of a boom." Faith had seemed to be somewhat reserved and quiet, a sort of sweet girl, but when it came to Colorado's guns, her confidence spiked as though she became situationally sure of herself.

Dani, of course, was excited about the guns herself. "And there's eight of them! Not to mention the secondary battery five-inchers."

Nicole sighed and folded her arms. She leaned against the wall and put a foot up against it. Her thick black hair covered part of her face as she bowed her head slightly. "Too bad battleships don't get to fire their torpedoes all that often. It's like I'm almost useless here."

"Aw, come on! I'm sure we'll get ourselves close enough to something to let a few torps loose here and there." Dani was automatically encouraging. "And if we happen to see any subs, I'll make sure Collie's the ship to get the kill," she said as she winked.

Bailey wasn't quite sure what to make of Nicole. She also seemed like an odd pick.

Dani continued. "I know there's a bunch of mock engagements during the semester, so I'm sure the school will find time for all of us to do awesome things. Personally, I can't wait to show off what ol' Collie can do. Sure, she's an old Standard-type ship, but the Colorado-class have the biggest guns out of the Standards. Her 16"/45 Mark 5s are the immediate predecessors to the Mark 6s on the North Carolinas and SoDaks. They're the grandparents of the Iowa-class's 16"/50 Mark 7s."

Bailey understood nothing of what Dani said. If the others shared her confusion, they were hiding it well. Dani looked out the window. Across Nevada was California.

"California has a turbo-electric drive like we do, so she's just as nippy and chuckable as we are. We've got the better guns and fire control equipment, though." She looked out the opposite window at Massachusetts. "That's the one to be afraid of. She's got bigger guns and better speed than any other battleship here. Hopefully, we'll never have to tangle with her."

Nicole's back was toward Massachusetts, and her piercing green eyes were drilling into the floor. "Get us close enough, and I'll blow her screws off. Maybe just the outboard two, make that bitch suffer like we do at twenty knots. Then let Faith tear her apart."

"I love that plan!"

Are we not going to acknowledge how absolutely creepy that was?

"We should try it sometime!"

Of course not.

To get away from the weird feeling Nicole's comments gave her, Bailey announced that she was going to find her room. The flaw in her idea hit her as soon as she turned around. "Uh… where is my room?"

"Here! I'll show you!"

Dani grabbed Bailey's wrist as she led her back to the ladder. She slid down it easily and landed on the deck below. Bailey took a gentler approach of attempting to walk down them like a flight of stairs. She felt like she was going to fall flat on her face.

"You know you're supposed to go down backwards, right?" Dani said as Bailey reached the bottom.

"What?"

"Here, I'll show you."

Dani stepped onto the next "flight" of the ladder facing backward as she had done before. Instead of sliding down, she climbed down. Bailey did the same and found it much easier and faster.

"Everything on a ship is a ladder. Even if it's angled like stairs, it's a ladder."

"Ah."

Bailey went to step onto the next ladder, but Dani pulled on her arm. "Nope." She led her through a door and into the ship itself. The door opened into a hallway that turned a corner and opened into a sort of miniature foyer area. A ladder went down further into the ship. Dani continued past the ladder and to a door. "Here you go! Your at-sea cabin!"

"At-sea?" Bailey asked as she opened the door. The room was fairly small. It had a bed, a locker for clothes, a desk, and… not much else. To the left was a door to the bathroom. Around the bed hung several phone-like pieces of equipment. Two portholes sat above the bed.

"Yeah, at-sea," Dani explained. "This is where you'd sleep any time the ship is underway. If it's not big enough for all your stuff, you do have a larger suite at the stern on Second Deck."

"A what?"

"Well, technically it's not your suite, it's the admiral's. This is the admiral's cabin as well, but since we don't have an admiral on board, I don't see why you shouldn't have it. If you seriously wanted to be a rules-follower, you could use your actual XO's cabin which is also on Second Deck."

Bailey had always been a bit of an obsessive rules-follower, but the logic made sense to her. If there ever was a reason that this room was needed, she could easily move. Letting the matter go would also get her away from the overly-hyped captain.

"I'll take it," She said.

"Great! My at-sea cabin is right next door, just on the other side of that bulkhead. I'll leave you be. See you at the all-hands call!" Dani disappeared the way they'd entered, presumably back up to the bridge. Bailey was left alone in her new room.

Don't freak out yet. It's just the first day. Everyone's putting on their personalities because they don't know each other yet. It'll be okay, just let the team develop.

Bailey shut the door and sat down on the bed. Her crew was certainly a collection of personalities. Would they ever form into a strong t-

No. Stop that. Now is not the time. You don't know them yet, you don't know anything.

She was the executive officer of a ship she knew nothing about. She didn't know where she was, or when anything would happen. Dani had said something about an all-hands meeting. What in the world was that?

Dani knew something she didn't. Bailey should have asked her what it was, but Dani had left so quickly that there wasn't any time. She'd obviously found out somehow.

Bailey sat up and pulled her bag off the desk. Under it was the folder she'd been given at the welcome center. After pulling out all the contents of the thick folder, she set everything out on the desk's surface.

The folder contained:

-a schedule of events for the first day

-a short welcome letter

-the full roster of every crew member

-a map of the ship, one deck on each page

-directions to the XO's cabin and from there, directions to areas such as the bridge, main classroom, mess, and her emergency stations

-a description of duties for each position on the ship, with those of the XO highlighted

Bailey still wasn't satisfied. She turned her attention to the drawers of the desk and the bookshelf above it. Laying out everything that was there, she found:

-several books and manuals on naval theory, mainly concerning tactics and strategy

-a ship identification guide

-several notepads and notebooks, complete with a set of pens and a clipboard

-a large rolled-up collection of six-foot-long papers called a "Book of General Plans" that looked like a more detailed version of the ship maps in the folder

These were the tools available to her. Bailey assumed that more XO-specific items would be in the actual XO's room. Putting everything except the maps, directions, and schedule away, she looked over what would be happening later. The all-hands meeting that Dani had mentioned was going to happen at 2 PM, or 1400 hours. Bailey mentally noted that one of the things she'd need to learn would be 24-hour time. It was 11 AM right now, she had three hours to get up to speed.

First off was to find her actual cabin and bring any new materials that were there up here. The trick would be even finding the place. Between the map and larger plans book, Bailey worked out that she was on the "Emergency Platform" or "04 Level." She would need to take the stairs - ladders, Bailey had to remind herself they were ladders - down to the Upper Deck or "01 Level." From there, she would find another set of ladders that would take her down to Second Deck, where she could essentially take a straight shot back to her cabin.

Now that she had a plan, Bailey carried it out. Down three ladders, forward one room, down another two ladders, and then she could walk back along the hallways. At first, navigating between the student rooms was difficult. The rooms were marked on the map, but one could easily tell they had been made to fit in whatever space had been there. It wasn't the most sensible layout, but eventually, Bailey entered an open area behind the student rooms. She remembered from the General Plans that the large boxy thing to her right was labeled "Uptake" (whatever that was, Bailey didn't know) which meant the door to her left was the way to go further back. Following this hallway that had more rooms, Bailey passed two large cylindrical structures that had been labeled "Barbette III" and "Barbette IV." Again, Bailey had no clue what they were, but they were good landmarks.

Finally, Bailey passed the ladder near her room, and there on the left was the door itself. Inside the room, Bailey found that it was somewhat larger than the one upstairs. The bed was the same, but the room had a bit more storage and space. The bathroom and shower were certainly larger. Bailey decided that whenever she needed to shower, it would be done down here if she could help it. Looking through the various items provided for her, she found several new books and manuals, her provided uniforms, and a few other knick-knacks that would be of use. After she put the items in her backpack and took one of each uniform type, Bailey backtracked to get to the at-sea cabin.

Once she'd settled in, Bailey checked her watch. It was now quarter till noon. A little over two hours to go. Now would be the time to catch up on whatever she didn't know that the others did. First would be the schedule, then whatever sort of naval knowledge she could learn. Thankfully, Bailey had found a dictionary of naval terms in the XO's room.

Time to get studying.