Chapter 1 - Arrival
"Sir, you can disembark now"
The copilot said, peeking into the back of the plane.
"We'll make sure your luggage is brought to your room once we are done with the with the post-flight stuff."
Matthew replied with a "Thank you" and a quick bow of his head before he opened his seatbelt.
After a quick stretch, he grabbed his coat and put it on. The plane might not be the most comfortable, but the interior was heated.
It was still mid-autumn, but cold winds had been coming from the arctic for several weeks already, holding the temperature only barely above freezing in the last days.
He opened the door of the plane, only to be greeted by a cold gust that pierced right through his coat.
He took a deep breath and looked past the cloud his breath formed in the cold air.
The seaplane was moored to a rather wide wooden pier. Around fifty metres long, he guessed.
There was a young woman standing roughly in the middle of it. Behind her, Matthew could see a small group of girls, around ten maybe, standing at the other end of the pier.
To the right of the pier, there was a small hangar, probably for a single seaplane.
On the other side were several concrete piers and behind them pretty much the entire base.
He focused back on the single girl, he would have time to inspect the base later anyway.
She was wearing a simple school uniform, the short sleeved shirt in an almost white grey with a tealish collar, paired with a short skirt in the same tone as the shirt's collar And a white cap.
A short skirt?
"Girl, it's literally freezing out here."
He tried to physically shake off the thought of wearing such short clothes in this weather.
Another deep breath.
Holding onto the frame of the door as he stepped on the pier, carefully watching his feet to make sure he would not slip on the wet pier.
He could have sworn he saw the girl flinch as he looked back up.
A silent sigh before he started walking.
After a few steps, a squall hit from the left.
It was nowhere strong enough to affect his balance, but it felt... heavy. Like a bad omen, maybe?
As he turned his head back ahead, he noticed the girl's ponytail swaying in the wind.
It was long.
It went down all the way to her knees, if not even further.
Only now, as his eyes followed the brown ribbon that was laced around the ponytail, he realized that she wasn't wearing a cap.
Her hair actually was almost white, showing a slight tint of pink.
"Wow, there must be a few thousand teenagers who would kill for that hair colour in Tokyo alone"
He thought as he snapped his attention away from the girls hair.
It had grabbed his attention, but it hadn't kept him from walking.
He was already close enough to make out her face.
She was smiling.
It was a forced smile, overshadowed by her worried eyes.
He stopped around two meters in front of her and performed a lax salute.
"Rear admiral Mato. I'll be in charge of this naval base for now."
The girl responded with a proper salute
"Fourth ship of the Nagara-class Light Cruisers, 'Yura'. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
A blatant lie.
Her voice didn't betray her words. It was calm and friendly.
Her eyes however...
They were more along the lines of "If you value your health, you better not be as bad as your predecessor."
A quick bow before she continued to talk.
"We thought it might be good for you to have one of us show you around."
"I appreciate that," he replied "a lot."
She motioned towards the girls at the end of the pier "Those of us who are in a presentable condition have gathered to give you an at least somewhat proper greeting."
Presentable condition... He didn't like the sound of that at all.
On the other hand, that meant the base had more Shipgirls than the eleven he had in front of himself right now. At least some relief for his mind.
He followed her towards the others, walking almost two meters behind her.
Two more young women, most likely cruisers, like Yura. One of them had long brown hair, wearing an orange skirt, the other one shoulder-length black hair and was wearing a dark blue uniform.
Almost as if they were hiding, the other girls stood behind the two.
Destroyers he assumed, due to them being considerably younger-looking and smaller. They looked like they were not even middle-schoolers and wore a variety of uniforms.
But most striking were the different hair colours.
Blonde, brown, black.
Clean white.
Green.
An interesting ensemble to look at, but he had more important things to do now.
He brought his thoughts into order again as he stepped up in front of the group.
The girls saluted him.
"At ease" he said almost immediately. He didn't feel like having them stand at attention while he was introducing himself.
"I'm Admiral Matthew Featherstonhaugh. Don't bother trying to pronounce it, just go with Mato, like everyone else. It's officially recognised as a second name, so don't worry about breaching any protocols."
The girls seemed like they didn't know how to respond to this revelation.
"And before anyone asks: No, command has not been given to a foreign admiral. My name may be British and my appearance far from Japanese, but I was born and raised in Japan and am a citizen to Japan and Japan only."
Before he got to continue, he was interrupted by the growling stomach of one of the destroyer-girls.
Embarrassed looks followed, but Matthew couldn't help but let out a small burst of laughter.
"Sounds like I'm not the only one to skip breakfast today!"
The only answer he got were grim stares.
The brown-haired cruiser was the on to break the awkward silence.
"She... She d-didn't."
She stammered out, with a soft, wavering voice, as if she was scared of him.
"I-It..."
The black-haired cruiser resolved to continue the other one's sentence.
"It wasn't enough."
She spoke quickly.
Probably to hide her own nervousness and fear, but the remaining hint was more than enough for him to recognise it.
"For none of us."
Only now Matthew realised what that girl had just said.
They weren't getting enough to eat.
His smile disappeared in an instant as he tried to reorganise his thoughts, trying to figure out how to respond.
Five seconds later he knew what to do.
He straightened up, put his hands together behind his back and took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes
"Calm, strong, reliable."
He repeated words in his mind two or three times before he breathed out and opened his eyes again.
"It appears my superiors failed to relay vital information about the current situation on this base when they gave me my assignment. I'll delay the introduction until I have properly assessed the situation to avoid embarrassing myself again."
His tone was stern, but calm. His Captain-voice, as a certain ensign he had served with for years called it.
"Dismissed."
Without waiting for their reactions, he turned towards Yura, her face now showing nothing but surprise.
"My office has a phone from where I can contact the mess hall, right?"
An "I think so" was the only response she managed to get out.
"Good. Could you show me the way to my office? It seems I have a lot of work to do."
She nodded and started walking towards the buildings of the base.
This time, Matthew didn't just stay behind her. He walked left to her and sped up the pace until he was almost jogging. A quick look over his shoulder confirmed that Yura had no trouble keeping up.
He didn't bother trying to memorize the way to the office or look at the other buildings, he would have time to explore the base later.
But now, other things had priority.
The office building was rather unremarkable. A small, compared to the other structures on the base at least, two-story building, with a large front door.
A small Entrance section followed by a spacious foyer.
Without a word, Yura led him through the curtain opposite of the Entrance, through a hallway with two doors on each side to a heavy hardwood door at the end of the Hallway.
Yura waved at the door.
"This is your office."
She then pointed at the other doors, one after another.
"Behind the other doors, you will find the currently unoccupied secretary's office, a conference room, a storage room and the base's server room."
She clearly didn't know what a server room was.
"We had the base personnel remove the your predecessor's personal items from the office. You will have to ask them about their current location."
She proceeded to open the door.
The office was more than twice as big as the one they put him in at Kure, when they desked him three weeks ago, brightly lit through the windows in the wall opposite of the door.
To the left there was a rather plain desk, with map of the pacific on the wall behind it. The right wall was covered by large, non-Japanese looking, wall-to-wall cupboard-shelf-closet mixture that extended into the room as a U-shaped sofa with a small tea table in the middle.
Matthew let out a short sigh and quickly walked over to the desk.
While sitting down on his chair, he took note of the few items on the desk apart from a computer screen, keyboard and mouse: a small desk lamp, an unlabeled folder, filled with with paper, almost as thick as his thumb was long and the telephone.
The telephone was wired, but a very modern design. No keys, just a touchscreen. A small tap on the screen and three buttons appeared on it: internal calls, contacts and manual dialling.
He picked up the receiver and tapped the button for internal calls.
Harbourmaster, Maintenance, Arsenal, Depot, Mess Hall. They weren't in alphabetical order, probably sorted by phone number.
He tapped the mess hall contact and waited.
It only took a few seconds until someone picked up.
"Mess hall, chief Maeda here."
Matthew waited a second to make sure Maeda was done talking.
"Admiral Mato here. I will be in charge of this base from today on and I have a few questions for the one in charge of feeding the base."
"Welcome to Notoro point then, admiral. I'm glad the board got a new admiral here that fast."
A weary sigh followed Maeda's words.
"Well, you already have the one in charge of the catering on the line and I can also imagine what you want to ask. Your predecessor put some harsh rationing in place. I already filed several complaints to the brass because the way he went about the issue seemed just... wrong."
Matthew shook his head.
"No more rationing. If possible, try to have enough food there for lunch already. No need for anything fancy, just make sure it's enough."
"Yes, sir!" Maeda's reply was full of enthusiasm.
"One more thing, chief, can you try to get some people for a night shift? I want to make sure that the girls can get something to eat any time they are hungry, but I assume you don't have the manpower to switch to a 24/7 open doors schedule from today to tomorrow."
"Hm."
Matthew could almost hear the chief's brain working.
"Your assumption's correct. But I should be able to get some people to cover a night shift."
He was talking very fast now, eager to get to work. He probably didn't like the shipgirls starving any more than they did.
"I'll call you if I can't get anyone and will start on switching to a 24/7 schedule as soon as I have a routine for proper sized meals back."
"Thank you. I appreciate your effort, chief and I'm sure the girls will also be very grateful. Dismissed."
The chief hung up almost instantly.
Matthew slowly hung up, took a deep breath and let out a long sigh.
"Aaalright, that's taken care of."
No more captain-voice for now.
He looked around the room for a bit before turning to Yura again.
"Back at the pier, you said that the girls in a presentable condition were there. What about the rest? How-"
Yura interrupted him.
"The folder on your desk will be able to answer your questions better than I can. Hosho privately kept a log on sorties, new arrivals and so on. The first page is a summary of the current situation condensed on one page."
Her voice sounded worried now, helpless.
As he opened the folder, he could hear a truck engine howl, followed by screeching tires, as the truck took off of the base.
He brought his attention back to the folder and moved the blank sheet on top of the stack of papers away.
He managed to hold his curses back as he stared at the paper in disbelief.