Azur Lane: A new Hope

Arrival

There it was. The Base of Azur Lane, center of the global alliance to defeat the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.

It happened many years ago when, out of nowhere, a new and unknown threat emerged. They were simpley called The Sirens. And with their superior technology they took control of the Oceans. For the first time in history, all nations united and formed an alliance called Azur Lane. It took decades but humanity finally took back the Seas. That was largely thanks to the innovation of new technology and, using the mysterious Wisdom-Cubes, the creation of Kinetic Artifactual Navy Self-Regulative En-lore Node or KAN-SEN. Warships that were given a human form. The idea was to combine the power of ships with the intelligence and intuition of humans. This approach was hugely successful and the Sirens were driven back on all fronts. Yet there were many still out there... waiting.

And now he was going to be the new Commander of the Azur Lane fleet. So many officers would go to great lengths to be here, they would feel happy, proud or powerful.

But John Knight was NOT one of them. He HATED being transfered here and he honestly had no idea why High Command picked him. Out of all the Officers that wanted this position, they choose him, even though he was not even interested. But he still had to follow the order and now here he was.

"There are so many people more qualified then me." he said to himself, looking out at the ocean as the base came closer. Until his promotion to Commander, Knight used to be a Liason officer. His job mainly consisted of exchanging informations between the factions while maintaining good diplomatic relations with them. And he had served in all of the factions that made up Azur Lane, even helped to draw up strategies against the Sirens. Yet he still felt overwhelmed by the task given to him. He wasn't even thirty and now they had pushed this huge responsibility on his shoulder.

He had never commanded a naval base before, let alone a complex one as this. And he never had to deal with KAN-SEN before, not really. Sure he had met a few of them during Events or at a Strategy meeting but he never really spoke to one, only in passing. Which was surprising given how many strategy meetings involved the use of KAN-SEN.

When he was first briefed about them, he thought it was some bad joke. Humans being created like in a lab? Having the power of warhips embeded in them? It sounded like something out of  a fantasy novel, until he saw first hand what they were capable off. And there were discussions behind closed door as to who or what they were. Mere mainfastations of humanity, ships that happen to have a human body? Or real humans with their own identity and feelings? Some even said that they, similar to the Sirens, were bio-androids and not humans at all. Knight himself did not know and he honestly did not care given the threat by the Sirens. It was probably better to just treat them like property of the state.

Ever since setting foot on this ship, he wondered why they choose him, he wasn't really given an explanation. Maybe they thought his Liason skills would fit right in, since Azur Lane and Red Axis had just now entered an alliance so caution was needed. Perhaps it was his heritage and connection: Being born in the Iron Blood but growing up in the Royal Navy and his stepfather being the Lord of Admirality.

Or maybe they were impressed with his conduct during his last voyage. On route to the Northern Parlament via the Bering Sea, the Eagle Union ship he was travelling on got attacked by Sirens. Being under fire for the first time and seeing his comrades die... it triggered something in him. He fought with the others, helping to aim and reload the guns and even taking out a few of the Sirens themselves. But defeat was inevitable. There was a large explosion and the next thing he remembered was waking up in a Hospital in Anchorage, nearly frozen to death. Doctors said it was nothing short of a miracle. No one else had survived. And he had barely recovered when he got a call of Azur Lane High Command, telling him that he was promoted from Lieutenant to Commander and that he was to lead the Alliance. Naturally this came as a big shock but when asked why they choose him, they simply told him that he was "the right one". Whatever that meant.