My arms trembled with exhaustion as I kept the large watercraft pointed towards the western setting sun, the hum of the motor becoming more and more of a droning sound as sleep threatened to take over. I knew that this was a really dumb idea, but I wanted to get back to my family -- back to my parents so we could ride out this worldwide disaster together.
Sparing a quick glance behind me, I saw the unbroken watery horizon stretch all the way around me as the clouds above me started to turn to deeper shades of orange and red.
Many called me insane, and some commented that I wouldn't last the eight-day trip by boat, but I ignored their jeers and taunts as I used the last of my exchanged currency to buy a motorboat. There was enough gas in the expanded tanks for the first three days, so I supplied myself with enough petrol to push me towards America's east coast in the hopes that the lighter weight would increase the distance I could travel as I emptied the cans into the tank.
The only thing that I didn't have was a radar.
I had somehow stayed up for four nights, fighting off sleep and exhaustion by portioning the caffeinated drinks that I had bought. Blinking harshly, I tore my eyes away from the hallucinations of small colored orbs darting around my boat, focusing back on the horizon ahead of me.
I needed to make this crossing, to know that America was still there and not destroyed like the whispered rumors had been commenting.
----
A loud screech startled me from my unexpected rest, my hands numb from gripping the steering wheel harshly as I bolted up from the only seat on the boat.
Quickly rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I nearly screamed as a missile soared right over my boat, the high-pitched whine of the engine drowned out when it dove into the water tens of feet away from me. A muffled thud sent a sizable explosion of water spraying upwards, the finer droplets carried a little by the wind as most of the torrent splashed back down near the area. Glancing back from where the missile had come from, I stared in horror as I watched three warships engage each other in a skirmish.
Two of the warships were smaller than the third one, charging towards the larger ship as it raced away from the obvious pursuit. Reacting quickly to the surge of speed from the larger ship, both of the pursuing ships accelerated and pulled away from it as multiple clanks were heard from across the water. A moment later, several missiles similar to the one that almost hit me shot high into the sky from both of the smaller ships, arching down and streaking towards the larger warship.
Many of the missiles collided with some kind of invisible forcefield, the explosions curling around an unseen sphere as several pink medium-sized hexagonal plates revealed themselves from the impact of the blast, spidering out to cover the diameter of the hits before fading from view once more.
My heart stopped, realizing that all three of the warships were from the "Fleet of Fog" -- the very same force that had destroyed most of the world's naval forces and cut off nation-states from each other.
They were the reason why I couldn't go back home for the past four years.
The bow of the larger ship was aimed right at me, sending spray around its sides and somehow picking up more speed as another round of missiles launched into the air from the smaller ships. It was several hundred feet away from my boat and closing in fast.
I paled and turned the key in the engine ignition, the starter sputtering uselessly as the fuel gauge warned me that I was out of fuel in the tanks. There was no time to refuel, jumping off of the boat as the bow of the larger warship cut right through the deck area and continuing on like it hadn't hit anything. I was swept up in the wake as the large waves rolled over me, the cold ocean water sending a shock through my body.
There was barely any time to react as I surfaced, tossed about by the wakes of the other two ships as one of them passed within feet of me. I felt the hum of their engines grow louder as their turbines pushed them forward, expecting to be sucked into the powerful propellers and saying my prayers of goodbye. The hulls of the warships slid by in the water and chased after the larger warship, the same one that had yet to fire any of its weapons. I hadn't even felt the usual pull of a ship propeller in the water when the stern of the warship passed, only the soft tingle as bubbles began to surface where the ships had passed.
Breaching the surface after another wave crashed over me, I took a deep breath and watched the larger warship with both confusion and fear. A flash of pink drew my attention up to the tower mast above where the ship's bridge was, seeing a faint outline of a figure standing on top of the massive structure.
I couldn't see what they looked like, but saw three wide pink rings floating around them. The same color was also displayed across the hull of the larger warship in angled patterns. The smaller warships had patterns, too, but theirs were colored a deep red.
The exhaustion of staying awake for five days clawed at my muscles as I fought to stay above the water surface, scanning the area to try and find some part of my boat to cling to. The now calm seas revealed nothing to me as the two pursuing warships pulled away in opposite directions, gaining distance from each other before several blasts rocked them nearly sideways. Two large spheres of crackling black-and-reddish energy swallowed their sides that had been facing the direction of the larger fleeing warship, metal groaning with strain before the sphere collapsed with a thunderous clap. A second later, four explosions tore through the smaller warships, one at each point of impact.
The dark pink blasts were quickly followed by secondary explosions, sending shockwaves across the water surface as large pillars of water were launched high into the air from the initial hits. I stared in shock as the bow of the larger warship pushed through the smoke and mist from the explosions and destroyed vessels, slowly inching its way forward before turning slightly away from me. The warship seemed to sink down into the water as it came closer, the narrow leading edge that had cut through my boat now safely tucked underwater.
My body momentarily forgot its exhaustion as I stared at the deck of the warship, seeing someone from the bow run down to where I was as the ship slowly crawled by. He leaned over the railing and grabbed my hand -- one that I didn't realize I reached out with -- before hauling me up and over the railing onto the deck.
"Hey, take it easy. You're safe," The voice was calm as I collapsed onto the wooden planks, soaking wet and losing everything I owned in the span of two minutes. I watched the waterline that was just lapping at the top of the deck fall away to somewhere beneath the hull, the ship somehow righting itself from sinking, "Do you have a name?"
"It's...Ashley...Ashley Crawford," I mindlessly spoke, staring at the ship underneath me before looking up to the person that had helped me onboard.
I first noticed their red sneakers and white socks, both wet from running through the two inches of water that were previously on the deck, before my eyes slowly swept up their form. Their lower calves were exposed by a pair of blue jeans with rolled up cuffs, a white shirt hanging low over their waist while being covered by a tan open-faced cardigan or sweater. A loose black scarf looped around their neck a few times while a black beanie sat on their dark hair.
"Well, Ashley, I guess I should apologize for wrecking your little dinghy there," The person spoke, sounding male with a slightly higher pitched voice. His lips were curled up into a partial cat-like grin, his dark eyes looking from me to over the edge of the warship, "I didn't see you until you were behind me."
"You don't need to apolo--" I cut myself off before scrambling away from the man, the look of apology replaced with one of confusion. My back hit the side railing as he continued to watch me, "You're one of the Fog!"
"Well, duh."
"What the hell was going on? Why were you being attacked? Why did you sink your allies? Why did you save me?!" My hands ran through my sea-soaked hair, trying to make sense of what was going on. The man stood still as more questions poured from my mouth, his eyes observing me without holding any emotion.
"I don't know."
His words silenced me, making it my turn to look at him in confusion.
"But...I thought the Fog always knew what they were doing."
"Normally, yes," The man nodded as he squatted down in front of me, resting his weight on his heels as he let out a heavy sigh, "Today just hasn't been my day, considering I've taken on a human onboard and destroyed two of my former fleetmates. So, I'm just going to start over starting now."
He extended a hand out towards me, the cat-like grin back on his face.
"This is the KMS Admiral Hipper. Welcome aboard."
----
I tucked my head into my folded arms, pressing my back against the guardrails bolted down outside the ship's bridge. Crawling up to the bridge in hopes of seeing other people, the idea of being alone on a Fleet of Fog warship really started to hit home as I glanced up to where I knew the man was sitting on top of the bridge.
A pair of red shoes dangled from where he sat with his legs draped over the sides, letting out a hum as the warship continued on its path towards...somewhere.
"You know that you don't need to sit there, Ms. Crawford," The man commented, kicking out his feet a little as he addressed me by last name, "I could fashion a really nice chair for you to sit in on the bridge, or even a bed."
"No thanks," I muttered as I fought to keep my eyes from slamming shut, my body begging for relief and rest, "If you're going to try and kill me, I'd rather see it coming."
"Kill you?" He bent down to look at me, a hand keeping the beanie on his head as his dark hair fell with gravity, "Now, why would you have that thought when I've done nothing of the sort since you boarded?"
"You're a Fog ship," Glancing over at him, I dug my head further into my arms as my folded legs pressed closer to my chest, "All of the Fog ships want to destroy humanity whenever we're found in the water."
"Ah, that..." The man swung out from on top of the bridge and landed gently next to me, sitting down and bringing his knees up to his chin, "Like I stated earlier, I'm not really interested in that. I mean, I'm still a weapon that lives to destroy," He paused as his brow furrowed a little, "Right now, I'm just kind of drifting on the waters since breaking away from my old fleet."
"You mean...you've gone rogue?" I shifted over a few inches as he sat next to me, keeping space between us.
"I'm still following my original directive, but the Scapa Flow fleet has been changing and I've decided to push on without their assistance," He shrugged, "I'm more than capable of handling myself out in open waters, and Bismarck has been...less than agreeable with my suggestions lately."
I heard the sneer in his voice as he mentioned another German warship, an old capital battleship from World War II that had obviously been resurrected as a Fleet of Fog ship, "What were your suggestions?"
"I can't say specifics, but it was dealing with the developments within the Scapa Flow ranks. Someone I didn't trust had made an appearance and brought a monster from Japan with him..."
"And...because of these disagreements, you fled?" I lowered my legs to rest on the deck, letting my arms fall to my sides as I watched the man next to me.
"Sure, you can call it 'fleeing'."
"What would you call it?"
"Evacuating," His dark eyes glanced up at me, "I refuse to allow myself to be used by a madman, so when the fleet destroys him, I'll more than likely return back to the Scapa Flow."
The man's eyes shifted back towards the open waters behind our backs, standing up quickly and looking out past the Admiral Hipper's bow. Gripping the railing tightly, he put his right foot on the top rung and jumped back up onto the bridge tower, "Well, that's not good..."
"What," I scrambled up to look over the railing, spotting a thin line of haze on the horizon, "What is it?"
"Open communications call for assistance, originating from an American Defense Fleet a few miles west of here."
American Defense Fleet? We were that close to America?! I looked up to where the man had jumped to, seeing the outermost edges of a few flat pink rings of light circling around something, "When were you going to tell me that you were bringing me here?"
"Never," He leaned down to look at me, the rings following his horizontal movement without changing their axis, "Considering I wrecked your ride here, I figured that I'd complete two objectives at the same time."
His dark eyes flicked back out towards the horizon, "Ugh...it's a detachment fleet of Hornet's. Damn it all."
"The USS Hornet? Like...the aircraft carrier? The Fleet of Fog has planes?!"
"Not anymore. They all got wiped out in the Great Naval War and the carriers were...repurposed into Assault-and-Suppression vessels. Think of it as another form of a battleship," The man sighed as he sat back down, letting his legs hang over the sides, "It's just a few Fletcher-class destroyers...nothing huge to worry over."
"Maybe for you! I know a few people in the Defense Fleet, and I also know that a single Fog destroyer could annihilate a small fleet on its own!" I thrust an index finger towards the horizon, "I want you to get in there and protect them!"
"Why would you want me to do that?" He scoffed as he looked down at me, raising an eyebrow in uncertainty.
"You won't need me to prove that you're not going to hurt their fleet, since wiping out the detachment fleet will put you in better graces with them than if you were to just sail into harbor," My voice softened from the panicked yelling, "Please...Admiral Hipper, I'd like you to do this one thing for me."
The man's eyes widened a little before he took in a deep breath, looking back out towards the horizon. After a short moment, he stood up and the rings rotated around him faster while closing in a little bit.
"That's the first time in two days that you've called me by my name, Ms. Crawford," I heard the warship under my feet hum to life as I clung to the railing, feeling the ship accelerate forward towards the fight, "If there's people that you know who are in danger, then I'll offer my services to keep them safe."
"Then...you're doing it?" The question left my lips with a surprised tone.
"I am a weapon. I live to be used by those that can wield me," He looked down at me with a smile resting on his lips, "So use me wisely, Ms. Crawford."
As the man focused back on the horizon, I slowly lowered my gaze as my fingers flexed against the railing of the heavy cruiser's bridge. This was what my life was for the next few moments, charging headlong into a naval battle with a sentient warship allowing me to take charge.
My heart pounded like crazy as adrenaline rushed through my system, the hum of the warship seemingly growing louder in response to my soaring confidence.