We get signal.

Eventually, the patrol was granted their fondest wish.

Something goddamn happening.

Beep beep beep. Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep. Beep beep beep...

Up until this point, life at the naval base had been almost insultingly quiet.

Had it not been for Kotone actually paying attention during training, she might not have even recognized a distress signal. After all, the Empire had little use for that while they were pasting the Alliance all up and down the oceans, sending them to the bottom as so much twisted scrap metal, and even pushing inland to their strongholds at Aclend across the sea.

There may not have been any official missions coming through, but somebody needed their help, and it was their obligation to respond. Out this far, Kotone was the only one even remotely close enough to even get the message.

Luckily, this set of beeps was accompanied by a live broadcast.

“Empire vessel Sovereign chased by fourteen enemy destroyers. Light damage sustained, bearing one-one-nine towards Naval District Forty-Seven. Requesting support. And hurry it up!”

“Sovereign, hm?” Intervention hummed contemplatively.

“Fourteen destroyers?!”

Kotone nearly forgot to transmit a “message received” confirmation in her haste to gather her forces for a sortie. It may not have been a “real” mission, but it was arguably more important than anything she’d be given anyway.

They were about to sail into their first contact with the enemy, badly outnumbered.

Were it not for Intervention’s heaving bulky cannons on display down there, Kotone would never even consider moving in like this, but with an ally squawking for help… they had **** but to lock and load.

“Everyone, this is the Admiral. You all heard that! Battle stations! Turn to bearing two-two-zero and secure for action.”

Intervention noticed a note of pure determination in Kotone’s voice, something she didn’t expect out of the timid spunk-tank Admiral supposedly in command. Perhaps even excitement. Walking alongside her didn’t feel so much like she was guiding a hopeless lost child this time, even if she was still very much the same person as always.

Maybe Kotone had some potential yet.

They kicked it up from cruising speed to flank, pushing throttles as far as they’d go and sending gouts of **** flame billowing from smokestacks. The deck beneath their feet leapt from waves and engines roaring alike.

“Shouldn’t you say something before we engage?” Intervention asked. “After all, this isn’t just your first time.”

Did she have to word it like that?

Still, Intervention wasn’t wrong. Open combat was mere minutes away. Only the heavy cruiser herself had seen the real thing before. Neither Kotone, nor her new destroyers, had been part of a real battle.

Yet Kotone was different. An admiral had no business panicking under any condition whatsoever.

“Listen up, Forty-Seven! We’ve got a friendly ship in need, and a big swarm of enemies right on her tail. Without our Intervention, she’s done for. That’s all we need to know! If they aren’t driven off by our superior firepower, then we’ll show them what the Empire is capable of!”

Intervention saved a flat huff until after Kotone had stopped broadcasting. As far as speeches went, it was serviceable. It soothed the nerves of the destroyers, and even Kotone herself, to a degree.

“Not bad,” Intervention said.

“I have no clue what I’m doing,” Kotone admitted, turning bone-white.

She was still shaking with the nervous, devil-may-care energy of somebody who knew they might be committing a grave mistake. The true sense of freedom that came from jumping off a cliff.

Yet, Intervention couldn’t help but notice how she never even considered just withdrawing and letting events play out.

Not even to save her own skin.

It scarcely took minutes of full-speed cruising for Intervention’s experimental long-range radars to pick up Sovereign’s signal, and her pursuers showed up soon afterwards.

All four of them.

“Not fourteen?” Kotone asked, going over to her sea charts to scribble in contact reports off the radar with a number two pencil. “Four?”

“Four,” Intervention nodded. “Unless we’re facing a brace of submarines, there’s just five signals in total. One is larger than the others, and further ahead.” That was all that could be reliably determined from the blips from each radar pulse; it wasn’t like the radio waves knew to tell friend from foe. Or gave any detail at all except that something big and metal was reflecting back to them.

The only theaters in which this new-fangled radar technology made any difference were in finding airplanes against the background peace of the sky, and finding ships set against rolling, predictable ocean tides.

Intervention picked up those binoculars and had a look, smirking.

“The lead contact is also visibly on fire. And taking cannon fire, as well as returning it with those pitiful guns.”

Distant flashes on the horizon, and the rumble of artificial thunder through the bridge’s bulletproof glass windows, bore that out.

“Was the message mistaken?” Kotone frowned, and picked up her radio headset. “Elements, do you have anything on sonar? Sweep for hostile submarines.” Destroyers were made for anti-submarine warfare in theory, but she wouldn’t like the results of trying that untrained.

Not that much could be done if ten submarines were harassing a single ship.

Alliance submarines in particular were infamous for their lethal ‘lancer’ class torpedoes, which could split a ship cleanly in half with a single opportune hit. Because of unsubstantiated rumors that they used pure oxygen, there was barely any of the telltale ‘white foam trail’ in the water to even warn of oncoming ****.

Which made Kotone wonder how Sovereign was even still floating.

Soon, she got her reply, from Ace of Spades’ cool, soft ever-relaxed voice.

“Nothing on sonars. Over. I just see four on the surface.”

“I also don’t have anything on my sonar screen!” Fortuna was delighted. “Then it’s an even fight! Except for our terrifying older sister. Shall we move in, Admiral? Over.”

Kotone let out a sigh of relief, though her heart was still racing.

“Don’t unclench just yet,” Intervention reminded her sternly. “It’s better than we expected, yet those are real enemies out there. Made with the same purpose as our warships. They are prepared to die for their precious ‘freedom’, and they are most assuredly willing to kill you for it.”

Kotone took a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, just like we practiced.” She blushed, and then grabbed her headset. “Ahem. Just like we practiced, girls. Blue, hard to port. Red, hard to starboard. Flank from either side, and pour it on. Keep them too busy to expect a surprise from the sky.”

Intervention’s enormous triple-barreled naval cannons were already fixed into firing position, ready to lob shells up past that horizon line.

“Let’s do this.”