Gangut peered at me for a long time before she spoke. "A long time, you say, Comrade? For another time, perhaps, or something to discuss in a more private setting?"

I glanced around the cafe, taking stock of my surroundings. While the place was empty, I knew this could be a while, and I didn't want to inconvenience the staff who, after a long day, probably just wanted to go home at this point. "A more private setting, I think."

Gangut's expression became serious, as serious as I'd ever seen her. "I know just the place," she declared before gently nudging me out of the booth.

As I scooted out and got to my feet, Gangut slapped a few bills down on the table and grabbed the bottle of vodka. She held it aloft and called out to the waitress in Russian, who smiled and waved back. Satisfied with her reply, Gangut took my arm and escorted me out of the cafe.

"So where are we headed?" I asked her, noting Gangut was walking at a normal if not downright leisurely pace. I was nothing if not grateful for that; the vodka was starting to take effect and I don't think I could've managed to keep upright if she'd walked at her usual rapid clip.

"The mess hall," she answered matter-of-factly. Sensing my concerns, she added, "It will be closed for another four hours, so we will be able to speak without interruption. And it will be warm. Unless you are preferring a chat outside in the cold?"

I emphatically shook my head. I still hadn't adjusted to the biting chill in the air just yet, and I didn't want to catch a cold on my second day on the job. "Mess hall will do fine, thank you," I replied with a thin smile.

"Good."

We walked the rest of the way in silence until we reached the mess hall. Just as Gangut had said, it was dead quiet, and to make sure we weren't interrupted, she locked the doors behind us before taking a seat and patting the chair next to her. "Will this be sufficiently private for you, Comrade?"

"Yes," I said with a slight smile as I sat next to her. "I think this will do just fine."

She nodded to herself before she grabbed a pair of glasses and poured us each another shot. "So, you were saying something about your family?"

Deciding I wasn't quite drunk enough to open up about my family, I threw back the drink in a single gulp, earning a raised eyebrow from Gangut. "Yeah," I rasped as the vodka burned its way down my throat. "Like I said, it's a long story, but I'm guessing you want to hear it."

"Only if you are comfortable with it."

I paused. I wasn't comfortable with it. I'm never really comfortable with it, even now, but I wasn't so uncomfortable that I couldn't talk about it. "It's alright," I said before I took a deep breath and dove in. "So…family…I've got two older sisters, Alexandra and Maria. Alexandra's three years older than me, Maria would be two years older than…this August. We didn't exactly have the best parents. Or good parents. Actually, they were pretty shit, to be perfectly honest. They were both drug addicts and spent more time getting high than trying to take care of us. Alexandra did her best, God bless her, but there's only so much a kid can do. Eventually, social services picked us up and we never saw them again, good riddance. A few years ago, I looked them up, see what happened to them. Mom's doing a twenty-year stretch for a botched home invasion, Dad died of an overdose twelve years ago."

The normally bombastic and loquacious Gangut seemed subdued, shocked by my story thus far. "Comrade…Mikhail…I…I'm sorry."

"For my parents?" I asked.

"Da," She nodded, then caught herself. "For all of it."

"Thank you," I smiled softly, "But I'm not finished just yet. After social services put us into the foster system, things got somehow better and worse at the same time. On the one hand, we had clean clothes, regular, hot meals, the chance to go to school and actually learn. On the other, it felt like we were still outcasts. Yeah, we weren't the smelly kids who didn't have any lunch to eat, but now we were the kids with no parents. And to make matters worse, nobody wanted us. The three of us wanted to be adopted together, and trying to find a couple willing to take three foster kids is a tall order. Alexandra soldiered on with that brave face she'd had on since she was six, I followed Alexandra because she'd gotten us this far, and Maria…" I leaned back and sighed. "Maria just got angrier and angrier. She was always the stubborn one, always looking for a fight, or an excuse to start one. One day, she gets into an argument with our foster parents and storms out. She never came back.

"To this day, we don't know what happened to her. We've tried looking up every Maria Brown we could find, police records, hospital records, death certificates, even those ancestry DNA sites to see if anyone else with familial DNA had signed up." I smirked wryly. "Alexandra and I had the same idea, but we didn't tell each other about it. Imagine our surprise, and disappointment, when we called to share the news that we'd found a match.

"Unfortunately, taking it from three kids to two still didn't mean much, so we spent the rest of our childhood in foster care. When we aged out, we both wanted to give back to the government, since it took care of us when our parents never could. Alexandra joined the Army, became a tank commander. Last time I spoke to her, I think she was running a battalion now. And I, of course, joined the Navy, leading me to here." I smiled and spread my arms out. "And that's the story of my family."

Gangut didn't say anything at first. She stared at me for a long time before launching herself out of her chair, rocketing straight towards me like a missile. I had just enough time to jump in surprise before she slammed into me, wrapping her arms around me in a fierce bear hug. She stood upright, lifting me off my feet as she continued to hold me in her strong embrace.

"I cannot make up for the past, Comrade Mikhail," she whispered softly. "But I tell you now, you are family here. You will always have a family here. This, I promise you. From today until the end of all days."

At first, I couldn't say anything, and not just because she was slowly squeezing all the air out of my lungs. I'd become used to the sympathetic statements, the sad smiles, the hopeful encouragement that I'd find a new family. But this, to be immediately accepted, practically dragged into one without a second thought on Gangut's part…it was almost too much to bear. I was grateful she was hugging me at that moment as I was sure if she looked me in the eye, I probably would've burst into tears.

After swallowing a few times and taking whatever short breaths I could to bring myself back under control, I gently patted her on the shoulder and rasped, "Thank you."

Sensing I was almost out of air, Gangut set me down and stepped back, her eyes watering slightly as she nodded. "It is our pleasure, Comrade. And your sisters, too. Even the tankisty. She may have chosen the wrong field, but our guns can keep her safe!"

"I'll be sure to pass that along," I chuckled slightly. "I'm sure she'll be flattered by the offer." And I'd get the edge in our little rivalry we shared to boot.

"Of course she would," she eagerly agreed. "Who wouldn't want to be part of glorious Northern Parliament?" Her eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall and she let out a long sigh. "But that will have to wait for tomorrow, Comrade. It is getting very late, and you should get your rest."

I opened my mouth to object, but when I glanced up at the clock, the objection died in my throat. "Oh damn," I muttered, not realizing it had gotten so late. "Yeah, we'd better get some rest before tomorrow. Or later today, I guess. Good night, Comrade Gangut, and thank you again."

She gave me a broad smile and pulled me in for another hug. "Good night, Comrade. Sleep well!"

I managed to make it back to my quarters and fall into my bed for a few hours of precious sleep before I had to get up and ready for the next day. Thankfully, I didn't feel too hung over, and after a hot shower, a shave, and a new uniform, I felt refreshed and ready to get to work. But first, breakfast.

It seemed I wasn't the only one with that idea, as I heard a knock on my door as I was reaching for the handle. I quickly opened it to find Gangut there, looking as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever.

"Good morning, Comrade!" she beamed. "I see you are ready to get started. But first, breakfast?"

"Good morning, Comrade Gangut," I smiled back. "You read my mind. What's on the menu for breakfast today?"

"Same as yesterday," she answered, linking her arm in mine and leading me down the hallway. "And what is on the agenda for the day?"

"With the paperwork out of the way, I was planning on inspecting the riggings of the shipgirls we have in port, familiarize myself with your abilities a bit better," I answered.

"Then we shall show you the true strength and verve of the Northern Parliament fleet, Comrade!" she excitedly declared.

"Verve?" I repeated. "What's that mean in English?"

She turned to give me a perplexed look. "That is English."

"Really?"

"Da!"

She seemed so convinced that I simply let the matter drop. Imagine my embarrassment when I looked it up later and found out she was right.

After breakfast, the shipgirls assembled down by the docks and awaited my inspection. I arrived not long after, with Gangut dutifully following behind with a clipboard.

"Good morning, Comrades," I smiled at the assembled kansen. "Thank you for meeting me here, I promise to do this thoroughly, but quickly, so we aren't standing out here in the freezing cold for too long."

A ripple of laughter ran through the group and I nodded to myself. "Alright, let's get started. Rossiya, if you please."

The battleship stepped forward, her impressive rigging already deployed. "Sovetskaya Rossiya, ready for inspection!" she solemnly declared.

I smiled and stepped around her, checking over her rigging, looking for anything that stood out. I didn't have to look for long.

"What are these?" I asked as I saw a pair of holes in her rigging, equidistant apart. They were small but appeared to have been deliberately cut out of the metal. "Some sort of venting system?"

"Nyet," Rossiya answered with a shake of her head. "Those are for screws."

My eyes went wide and my head snapped up to look at her. "You mean to say you're missing vital components from your rigging?"

"I wouldn't say they're vital," she said with a nonchalant shrug. "I can operate with a few things still missing."

I was almost too afraid to ask my next question. "Does this include you're missing more than a few screws?"

"Yes," she nodded curtly. "But as I said, nothing vital. I'm perfectly capable of combat, as you yourself have seen."

I turned and leaned toward Gangut. "How do you express general shock in Russian?" I whispered. "Like 'oh my god!' or 'good gracious!'."

"Bozhe moi," she answered helpfully.

"Thank you," I politely smiled and returned my gaze to Rossiya. I had a feeling I would have good cause to use it in just a second. "And is that the case for everyone? Missing a few things but 'nothing vital'?"

"Yes, Comrade Commander."

"Bozhe moi," I sighed as I looked down the line of shipgirls, wondering just how bad it was. "Do you know what everyone's missing?"

"Mostly."

"And the stuff that's missing, is it things that the Northern Parliament doesn't have the infrastructure to replace or the materials?"

"A bit of both, Comrade Commander."

I sighed and stared out at the harbor as I tried to figure out the best way to handle this. After a few moments of thought, I turned back to Rossiya. "Okay, here's how we're going to work this: I want you to compile a full list of everything that's missing from every kansen here and get that list to my office, along with why it's missing. Supply shortages, lacking infrastructure, missing raw materials, all of it."

Rossiya nodded, then saluted smartly. "At once, Comrade Commander."

I returned the salute and called down the line of shipgirls. "Inspection over, unsummon your riggings! You're all dismissed except for Avrora and Pamiat."

As everyone made their way off the docks, I turned to Gangut. "I want to take a look at their bridges, I know Pamiat's in desperate need of an upgrade to her plotting table and I want to see both yours and Avrora's."

"M-mine?" she stammered, suddenly flustered. "Why would you want to look in there? I thought you said you would not keep me from a fight!"

"And I won't," I reassured her. "But should the event ever arise where I need to command from your ship, I want to make sure I'm working with equipment that matches your skill in battle."

Her concerns allayed and her ego fluffed, Gangut calmed down and smiled down at me. "Of course, Comrade. This way."

It was a short walk to where the Gangut sat, moored to the pier. The first thing that I noticed was the lack of a superstructure. There was the conning tower and aft fire control tower, of course, along with her smokestacks but beyond that, the only things that rose above the main decks were her guns. And there were quite a few, a dozen, in fact, arranged in a strange pattern, with two in the normal places on the bow and stern, and the other two sitting amidships where the superstructure would normally sit.

"Interesting design," I remarked as I studied it.

"Thank you, Comrade," she beamed. "As you can see, it gives me excellent fields of fire. There is nowhere to hide when Gangut has you in her sights!"

While she was certainly talking about her performance on the battlefield, there was a look in her eye that sent a shiver up my spine. The thought of being in Gangut's sights was most definitely something I would not mind in the slightest. "Wouldn't even try to hide from you," I laughed along with her as we made our way up the gangplank.

After a quick trip up the conning tower, I found the plotting room, which was cramped, even for just two people, and like Pamiat, her plotting table was a screen and a bunch of knobs, dials, and switches. It even had the same errant switch that Pamiat did.

"Do you know what that one does?" I asked her, pointing to it.

She stared at it for a second before she reached out and flipped it multiple times. When nothing catastrophic happened, she shrugged. "No idea."

And then the answer came to us.

"STOP FLASHING US, GANGUT!" Pamiat's voice drifted in from outside. Immediately, both Gangut and I looked at her impressive bosom, making sure that she was still covered, then back at each other with confused expressions. With her comments a mystery to both of us, we headed outside and looked down. Pamiat and Avrora were standing there on the pier with Avrora looking somewhat mortified and Pamiat staring up at us, hands on hips.

"What are you on about, Pamiat?" I called down to her.

"The running lights!" she yelled back. "Ya keep turning 'em on and off! Knock it off!"

I simply gave her a thumbs-up and turned back to Gangut. "Well, at least now we know what it's for. And go ahead and add 'labels' to the list of things we need to get."

"Da, Comrade," Gangut chuckled as she scribbled the note onto the clipboard.

A/N-At long last, we know what the mystery switch does! Which, really, was the heart and soul of this entire story. So it's pretty much all wrap-up from here, poll out tomorrow for the next ship-I kid, I kid. Still plenty to go with our beloved Gangut. Until next time, fair winds and following seas!