"I should get a different job."
I said offhandedly to my friend next to me who didn't appear to be listening to anything I said, neither was Mason to the left of me but he at least had an excuse, he had to listen for any night-flying airplanes returning from air-patrol or traveling from a different country to re-navigate or help land, but the last time that had happened was three hours ago.
What I had said though was apparently enough to warrant his half-hearted attention, as I could tell by his tired eyes.
"Wait, really?!" He said rather dumbfoundedly.
"Yeah..." "But why? I thought that you liked working as an air-traffic controller," he said gesturing to the open log book in front of me.
"I do..." "Then why?" He asked rather interested, I just stared at him as tiredly as I could and said, "Its because of the long hours we have to work without getting relieved, it's seriously messing up my sleep-schedule."
He just looked at me and chuckled and said, "Yeah, I guess so, what time did we get on?"
"10:00."
"And what time are we supposed to get off?" "Five in the morning." "And what time is it now?" He said looking out the morning sun rising through the morning mist.
"7:26," He looked at me incredulously for a second and then looked at the clock, staring at it for just a second before looking back at me.
"I think I see what you mean now." He said dead-faced which I gave a quick laugh at before turning back to Mason, nudging him and saying "So what time do you think you'll get off Mason?" I asked knowing that he'd know the answer.
He just smiled at me, took off his headphones, placed them on the table, turned off the radio, picked up his briefcase and said "Right now actually," and then there was a knock at the door.
We both just smiled at him over how many times he had done this, just all of a sudden pack up his things and let in the next person who would take over his shift as if he had known exactly when they were coming, it was honestly creepy the first few times but after learning that he had worked here for over fourteen years it made sense in a weird sort of sense.
He opened the door and just like clockwork, had made his way by the new kid Alexander who had started working here almost a week ago and without looking up at him said "Your turn now, Alex."
Alex just looked at him weirdly in return and said "You're a creepy old man, Mason," to which he just responded with as he was walking down the stairs "Yeah, yeah..." and with that Alex closed the door.
We both watched as Alex set down his own briefcase and set himself up at his station, removing his hat and putting on the headphones, "Why does he even bother turning all this stuff off if he knows exactly when I'm going to be here?"
We both just laughed at him and I said "Don't you worry to much about it, we both think that guy's been working this type of job far longer than he says he does. Besides, we'd both be doing the same thing if those partners of yours would actually bother to get here on time."
Dylan laughed a bit harder next to me and said "Oh, there's truth to that! Speaking of, what time did they say they were arriving again?"
Alex just looked at us both seriously, "They didn't, I tried giving them call like I did yesterday but they both just hung-up on me."
"Oh those two overprivileged college students, they don't know how good they have it, they're both getting fired for sure." Dylan said to Alex before turning back towards his station leaving Alex looking a bit worried for himself so I reassured him and said "Don't worry yourself about it, they're not going to fire you. Unlike them you actually try to show up to work on time you just need time yourself to adjust to it, just keep being a good egg and you'll be just fine."
He relaxed a bit further into his chair, "Thank goodness," he said before reaching over and turning on the radio looking at the paper below with the correct frequency written down on it, he then turned back to me after adjusting the volume with one of the speakers away from his ear and asked "So did anything interesting happen before I got here?"
"Nothing apart from the usual, Air Patrol went out but they came back in just fine so that was a wash."
"Well, anything that might make the day more interesting than it is now?"
I looked at him, "Well there's been some report of developing sea smoke so at least that may keep us a bit busy."
"Really? How busy are we talking about here," he said and then looked a bit focused on something he was listening to, "Yeah but it shouldn't be anything more than..." he looked really focused at whatever he was listening to.
"What's the matter, got something?" I asked him, I could hear Dylan turn to face us in his chair obviously as interested as I was in this recent development.
Then we both watched as he placed back the other speaker he was wearing and focused more on what ever it was he was hearing, now I was really interested, "What is it, like a plane in danger of crashing and needs our help to land?" I asked jokingly but he just shook his head and fiddled with the dial a little bit.
I looked back over at Dylan curious and he looked back at me the same way, it could very well be a crashing plane for all we knew, I then saw him look over at Alex so I turned around and saw him then ask, "Uh, how do I get it so you guys can hear it to?"
I smirked at him and his confusion and merely said "Here, let me handle this," and I reached over towards the radio and unplugged his headphones to hear what exactly he was listening to.
At first all that could be heard was a dull static and I was beginning to think that it was just a joke and Alex was pulling our legs but then very softly I heard a voice say "---uest-ng ---p, --r --ordi---es ar- cur----tly un---wn," I strained hard to listen to the incoming message with the voice fading into indecipherable nonsense so I turned up the volume.
The voice, now louder and obviously understood as a woman's voice continued, "-ou pleas- --nd out air sup--rt to find u- --d point us i- --e right direc----. --peat, this i- --e VC2-S--P1 O--ang ---an reque---ng a sear-- -nd resc-- so we ca- -et back asho--, plea-- -end help..." and then as quickly as the message had started, it had ended and then the implications started to hit us.
We had just received an emergency message from an unknown location, probably a ship in distress with the way she had pronounced their callsign and apart from the ships who probably weren't even up yet and radio stations who wouldn't be listening anyways, they were probably the only ones who had heard the message.
I looked over to Alex who looked at me with confusion on what to do next in this type of situation and I looked over to Dylan who looked at me with the same realization that I had just now and then I looked over to a red phone than was hung on the wall only meant to be used in the most extreme situations.
"I think it's fair to say that these are Commander worthy circumstances, wouldn't you agree boys" I said looking at the two of them, Dylan nodded his head in agreement and Alex just looked even further confused and now somewhat worried.
"Will somebody Please stop that incessant ringing!" I shouted in anger of being awoken from my very comfortable slumber and on a Friday nonetheless.
"It's the telephone commander, someone is requesting your presence," my maid Belfast pointed out to me rather annoyingly as if stating a fact.
"I understand that it's ringing, can you please put an end to it, I have one day to myself in the mornings each week and I'd rather it not be ruined by some pesky politician looking to change the paint patterns on one of the ships or the color of the uniforms purely because they think it looks good."
"But it's the phone commander," "I know that it's the phone, but you know how hard I work to clear my schedule for this one day and-" she cut me off before I could continue.
"No, you don't understand, it's The phone commander." she said being sure to really bring out that part of the word.
Intrigued, I opened my eyes and found her standing over me with a very bright and vibrant red telephone, seeing the color of it and the stern look of Belfast even in the dark with the blinds closed.
I looked back up at at her with annoyance and with a groan, sat myself up on the bed and took the phone from her hands holding it up to my ear, saying with the same tone I had while in bed "This better be important. Who is this?"
"T-Tyler sir."
"Mhm, I see. And why did you feel the need to give me a call at 7:30 in the morning, Tyler?!"
"Well, sir, you see, I work at the nearby Naval Air Base."
"Mhm."
"And I was working with my partner and our other partner had to change shifts with the new kid who started working a week prior."
"Sure."
"And we started talking about if anything interesting had come up before he got on and so I said to him-" I cut him off before he could continue and said "Get to whatever point you're trying to say before I have you court-martialed," Belfast hit my arm at that remark.
"Sorry! Sorry sir! Right anyways, the point is that Alex tuned into some random station and heard what appeared to be some kind of distress signal from an unknown ship from some unknown location."
That had me interested, "And why didn't you get the name of this ship?"
"Well sir we're pretty sure that they gave it to us but we couldn't hear them through the static," "Static?" "Yes, static sir. Sometimes with very old radios the only thing that can be sent or received by them is static with only bits of message coming through the white noise."
Well now that Was interesting, what type of ship would be using a radio that old.
"Did you get any information about the type we're dealing with at all?" I asked now intrigued at what response would follow.
"Well sir with all the static going on we couldn't exactly hear much information from her."
"Her?"
"The person giving the message was a woman, sir," now I'm really invested, this could mean that there was a new ship girl out there who was yet unknown.
"And you didn't get any sort of information at all," "Well, we did get one thing."
I almost jumped on the opportunity, "Well, what is it!" ok, maybe I should tone down the excitedness.
"Well, you see sir. They identified their ship as the VC2-S-P1? But there may have been something in there we didn't catch."
Well that had me wracking my brain, I was never very good at remembering the types of ships just their names and the forms I identify with them, it's why I always had an issue with identifying ships with similar names but what kind of should would have...
"Wait, are you sure it wasn't VC2-S-AP1" "Come to think of it, yeah it might have been, why?" "Thank you for bringing this to my knowledge," I said quickly and hung up the phone on him before he could have the chance to retort.
I quickly stood up from my bed and marched over to the bookshelf, ignoring Belfast as she complained about me being to rude to the man but I didn't care, I had to see if I was right and so I looked through the bookcase until I found what I was looking for.
A book on the identification of ships both naval and domestic, I quickly skimmed through the pages and just when I thought I wouldn't find it, I did.
VC2-S-AP1: Victory Ship
Well that couldn't be right, according to the book the Victory class was a cargo ship used by the military but they were discontinued a few years ago when the Eagle Union and Royal Navy bonded with each other, leaving the only surviving ones to be either destroyed or turned into museums so why would one of the other nations just decide to create a new one?
Unless... unless they didn't.
It was rare but it wasn't impossible, Hell Belfast was living proof of it occurring.
"Commander, are you just going to keep staring at that book or are you going to let me know what's going on?" she said worried as she looked at me.
"Belfast, I want you too go wake up Enterprise, Washington and Vestal and tell them to get ready to sail, and get yourself ready as well," I said to her quickly going over to my cabinet and pulling my uniform out.
"Is... is something wrong, commander?" Belfast asked now very worried.
"There's a new ship girl out there," I told her, "and I bet we're not the only ones who know about it."
Somewhere further away, on a separate island a very powerful figure is being told about a message received over the radio, this figure is dressed in a black uniform with red, white and gold stripes, she is wearing a blue badge with three hearts and wings revolving around each other, a large black and red cape with white fur at the end of it and long black stockings with similar fur.
She thanks the person who brought the information and tells them to call in someone else, the person then leaves the room and a few minutes later, someone else comes in.
This person looks shockingly similar to the person who called her which is less shocking at the fact that they are sisters, she is dressed in pretty similar clothing save for the fact that it is near opposite in color and is wearing a shorter cape, she gives a bow and waits for further instruction.
"Thank you sister, would you be so kind as to prepare yourself and another ship of your choosing to set sail."
"Of course, sister. But if you don't mind me asking, whatever for?"
This figure looks out the furthermost window looking out the open sea and says "There's been a new arrival to Azur Lane and," she looks back towards her sister, "I just wanted to give them a friendly Iron Blood welcome." she says and smiles.
Her sister likewise returns said smile and says, "Right, then I will go prepare myself, I won't let you down sister," before walking out of the room and closing the door behind her.
The figure then looks at the door with the smile no longer present and turns back to face the open ocean.