Heart of Oak: Chapter 1

Indian Ocean
April 12th, 1945

At the turn of the century, humanity found its seas forcefully taken from them by a ruthless and advanced enemy force. Since then, by reverse engineering their destroyed technology, they have managed to take back a portion of their oceans through the Kansen. Warships given human form, their abilities were much more powerful than any standard warship, and for decades, they have held the line. Unfortunately, in what was supposed to be a routine escort duty from the Azur Lane base in the Pacific to a Royal Navy base in Malta, a lightly defended convoy was caught in a sudden mirror sea.

The main defenders, currently consisting of three Kansen and some mass-produced ships, quickly found themselves outnumbered, and outgunned. Readying another airstrike, Perseus quickly yelled through her radio, alerting her two other allies of an incoming wave of Siren fighters.

"Twelve O'Clock! I'm sending a squadron for intercept. Have you made any bloody progress on contacting the main fleet yet?!"

She grunted as she dodged two missiles shot at her before Seafires took out the responsible Siren fighter. Normally there would have been a full escort for missions like these, but since it was deemed low risk by high command, it was allowed to go through even with an under-strength fleet. She wasn't even ordered to be on escort duty for God's sake, she was transiting from Singapore to Malta, on her way back to Portsmouth when the Convoy was formed. The ad-hoc nature of these escorts was common in regions where Siren activity was low, and the two other Kansen with her had similar circumstances.

Rushing forward, Hanazuki launched a spread of long-lance torpedoes towards a collection of Siren battleships raining down onto their position. A large portion of the Manjuu-operated merchant fleet had already managed to escape, but some were sunk in the fighting, and debris littered the area they were defending.

Frowning, the Akizuki-class destroyer fell back, firing her main guns at another collection of Siren fighters, ready to come back in for another strafing run. "We should fall back now! Our convoy has made it out safely, I don't think we need to stay any longer!"

Minneapolis took a brief moment to pause from firing her main guns and shouted back an answer through her radio. "You won't see me complaining! This hunt has run its course, let's get outta here!"

Perseus agreed, to stay and fight was a useless endeavour, and if anyone asked her, losing only a few merchant ships was great for what was essentially a surprise ambush. Really, if command wanted her to do a good job on this, then maybe they should have provided better intel. That commander at Azur Lane's main base wouldn't have made such a mistake, but he was often handling the important operations anyways. Small escort missions like this one were often left to lower-level commanders who usually commanded mass-produced ships only.

"Alright, we're getting out of here. I'll set my planes to cover our retreat-"

"The sky is glowing!"

Interrupted by Minneapolis, Perseus snapped her head upwards and saw the sky had turned from the dark-stormy weather that was characteristic of Siren mirror seas, to a bright blue light. Before she could even react, however, the light completely covered the three Kansen.

"What's going on?!" Minneapolis's harried voice came clearly through the radio, but Perseus couldn't even react before the entire area was engulfed in light.

By the time Prince of Wales led her fleet to where the mirror sea was, all she found as evidence of battle was flaming debris from some of the unlucky merchant ships. The three Kansen that were holding back the Siren ambush forces were nowhere to be seen at all.

Indomitable sailed up next to Wales, before picking up a piece of floating debris. "Their last message was ten minutes ago, where could they have gone…?"

All traces of there being a mirror sea was gone, and despite the escaped merchant ships showing videos of its existence, the stretch of ocean before the two showed no signs of it ever existing. A battle had most definitely taken place, but now three Kansen were missing, and they weren't answering any radio calls whatsoever.

Wales narrowed her eyes, suspecting some Siren trickery at play, ever since their renewed offensive and the revival of the high seas fleet, many once quiet regions suddenly became active again. Though this reeked of something at play, she currently had no leads to their location whatsoever. The commander must be notified of this development, lest any other Kansen also fell prey to these mirror sea traps. Sighing, she turned to her assembled fleet, mainly consisting of Royal Navy ships, before telling them to spread out cautiously to look for clues. Not only did one of their own, Perseus, get caught up in it, but also a heavy cruiser from Eagle Union and a destroyer from the Sakura Empire. Sighing, she decided to go look for clues as well, it was going to be sunset soon, and searching through the debris was much harder at night.

SHIELD Aircraft Carrier Illiad
Indian Ocean
April 12th, 2012

On one of SHIELD's aircraft carriers, there existed many functions that the agency would rather the public did not know. SHIELD had a public headquarters, but its actual size and scope were hidden very well from the public, only known to specific governments and its highest authorities. The Illiad, named after the Greek legend, was currently conducting routine spying operations in the Indian Ocean.

Who were they spying against? Everyone in that region, really, Governments, pirate groups, terrorist cells and the like were all being monitored. That particular stretch of ocean was home to one of the world's most important shipping lanes, if anything happened to that area, the global economy will be severely affected. Pirate groups in the area have gotten bolder over the years, with some benefactors somehow offering them military-grade weapons, sometimes even more advanced than what some Western militaries had access to.

"Sir! You need to see this!"

A rookie technician called out from his station, and the chief supervising officer immediately came over, looking at his screen. "What is it, Agent Caldwell?"

"A massive energy spike North-West of our position, it was there for just a second, but it blows everything we've recorded so far out of the water."

The officer immediately narrowed his eyes, before quickly walking over to a nearby phone. Pressing a button on it, he waited as it picked up almost instantly.

"Commander Gonzales, we have a situation."

As the light died down for Perseus, she slowly removed her sleeves from her eyes, once more being able to see the reflective waters of the Indian ocean. Quickly looking around, gone was the dark skies or bright blue light that engulfed her just recently, instead, she appeared to be back in the same place. The skies were clear once more, it appeared just as it had been before sailing right into that Mirror sea.

"Hanazuki! Minneapolis!" Perseus quickly radioed out to her two allies again, checking if they were also fine.

"I'm fine! What the hell was that?" Minneapolis radioed back first, she was a bit further away from Perseus right now but still within visual range.

"I am fine! It appears the Mirror sea is gone though..." Hanazuki had come to the same conclusion as well, the sea around them appeared to be completely clear, save for some of the burning debris.

Deciding that they should regroup first, Perseus took the time to attempt to hail the merchant fleet they were escorting. But despite their supposed proximity, she received no response.

"Anything?" Minneapolis asked.

"Nothing at all, we should be very close to them, hang on…"

As Perseus launched a single fighter to scout out for their location, the three Kansen attempted to each radio back using secure channels to their respective fleets. With their encounter just now, it was better to be on the safer side than risk another attack. Half an hour of searching and fruitless contact later, however, they decided that the merchant fleet must have moved on without them.

"Perseus? You know this area much better than any of us, where should we go now?" Hanazuki asked Perseus. The Sakura empire destroyer was cordial to the two other Kansen, and she found her personality to be much easier to get along with. Her cheerful personality was somewhat stopped during combat, but when they sailed together Perseus found her to have many interesting hobbies,

"We should be near the Bengali coast right now…I say we can head to Calcutta. There should be a Royal Navy port there, we can inform command of the situation when we arrive. If I'm not mistaken Prince of Wales has her battlefleet situated there?"

Minneapolis shrugged, her rigging was slung over her back when not in active use. "That's fine with me, we need to restock on ammunition anyways. Oh yeah, I found a Wisdom Cube on the way here, maybe it's from one of the Battleships we destroyed?"

Taking out the Cube from a compartment on her rigging, the Dakota Kansen showed it off for the two other Kansen to see. A part of operations like these was the salvage of Siren technology, which is then used to create Wisdom Cubes for whatever they are needed for. Power plants, construction projects, new Kansen and beyond often depend on salvage teams finding these Wisdom Cubes. Sometimes they were found intact, sometimes in pieces, but it was still a priority for Kansen to retrieve them if they did come across them in their operations. Usually after the battle though, you wouldn't want to have Kansen stop firing their guns to pick up Wisdom Cubes.

Perseus nodded, the quicker they got to Calcutta, the faster she can be on her merry way back to Portsmouth. Not that Singapore was a bad place, but she missed her other sisters back at the home fleet. Home is often where your heart is, but having a physical location also helped greatly. From the entire way there, however, the same awkward atmosphere persisted with the three Kansen. The ad-hoc nature of the fleet meant that they were more travellers going the same way than anything else, thus resulting in a somewhat awkward situation where no one really knew each other.

Maybe I should find someone else to help me practice talking…I can't rely on those mirrors forever…

Two hours after they left, however, an Aircraft Carrier would arrive at their location, only finding burned-out pieces of debris and nothing else. A case file would be opened for this incident, and three Kansen made their first forays into a familiar, yet brave new world.

AN:

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