The adventures of Prinz Eugen and the young engineer Volume 1.

No. 4 Chapter 4

Way past two in the morning the young engineer decided he had enough.
He waved Fritz Mahler goodbye, the latter engaged in a conversation with the Admiral of Wilhelmshaven. The young engineer passed a couple of other familiar faces and waved them goodbye as well before making his way to the bar counter once more.
Arriving there the two cruisers were still drinking and chatting. Walking up to them, he entered Prinz Eugens line of sight. The cruiser smiled a lax smile. "Huh? Is that you?" Prinz Eugen asked, seemingly surprised. "I thought you would have gone to bed a long time ago." She explained her reaction. By the way she spoke, the young engineer already knew that she had had enough. "Well, you got the key to our room, so I will have to wait on you. Otherwise one of us would not get in later." He explained. "Did you come over to have a drink then?" She asked him, completely disregarding the subtext of his statement. "No, not really." He answered somewhat uncomfortable. "Come on. Sit down with us. We will have some fun together." She invited him. "I don't think that is a good idea." He answered. Prinz Eugen stood up from her barstool and placed an arm around the young engineer's shoulders. "Don't you worry. It will be fun. Look, even Hipper is having a good time." She said while smiling at her sister. Admiral Hipper was also clearly inebriated and apparently fixated on the glass she was holding. Hearing her name she raised her head. "What did you say about my chest, Eugen?!" She asked in a furious tone. The heavy cruiser laughed about the reaction of her sister. "Nothing. I only invited our dear friend here to join us." She explained before pushing the young engineer down on the barstool next to her. "Hipper and I have a game we love to play. Would you like to play with us?" Asked Prinz Eugen, her engineer. "No, I would like to get on the way to the hotel." He answered. "Stop being a sissy, sit down and play our game with us. "Commanded Hipper, slightly slurring the last words. "How about it? We will go to the hotel if you pass three questions of our little game." Offered Prinz Eugen.
The young engineer was already done with his patience but he knew he had no other chance of making the cruiser go back. "Fine. I will play along. How does that game of yours work?" He asked her. "It is simple. I ask you a question and you will have to answer. If I believe you lied, you will have to take a shot. If you pass three times, you win." She explained, smiling. Seeing where this was going the young engineer would have liked to be at a hundred different places at that moment, but he was here. "First question. Whom do you like more? Hipper or me?" She asked the young engineer.

The young engineer fell almost off the stool. It was the first question and his bad feeling of probably entering hell's kitchen was already validated. These questions were made so that whatever he said he would lose in some way. Highly uncomfortable he tried to find a diplomatic answer but Prinz Eugen already interrupted him. "Come on, don't be so tense. Just let go and relax." She said while smiling and emptying yet another glass of Whisky. The young engineer swallowed before answering. "Well.... I would say as colleagues you both are fine to work with." He answered, trying to avoid the figurative minefield of wrong answers. Prinz Eugen laughed while Hipper stared a hole, that could have pierced armor, into the young engineer. "No no no. If I wanted to talk to a politician I would have asked one. You failed this one by not giving a clear answer." Said Prinz Eugen in a sweet tone, before pushing over a full shot glass. "Bottoms up." She said while the young engineer stared at the little glass. "Please don't." He tried to plea. "You agreed to the rules. Man up you baby." Hollered Admiral Hipper in her inebriation. The young engineer, now more than motivated to comply, took the shot glass and placed it on his lips. The stench of high concentrated alcohol and mint flavor reached his nose before he emptied the glass. It shook his entire body. "You are a sadist. Are you trying to poison me?" He asked Prinz Eugen. "Berliner Luft tastes like toothpaste with Vodka." He continued while trying to find a way to get rid of the horrible taste in his mouth, while the two cruisers laughed about his reaction. "Next question." Hipper continued. "Would you rather spend a day in the naval academy under the tutelage of Königsberg and Z-23 or an hour in a room with Gangut?" She asked him. The young engineer did not have to think long for an answer. "I spent an hour with Gangut locked in a room before. I would rather accept danger to my life again than having to live through the other option." He answered. The two cruisers looked at each other before laughing again. "Hahah... You rather.. haha .. risk your life than to be tutored by the two?" Hipper asked superfluous while laughing and catching her breath. "I can relate to that. These two are truly scary and strict teachers. I am sure Königsberg takes pleasure in punishing her students." Prinz Eugen agreed, amused. "I believe you on this one. First point to you." She added.

"Is it my turn to ask a question again?" Asked Prinz Eugen. Hipper nodded and a devious smile crept onto Prinz Eugens face. "Would you rather dance with Hipper in public again or trip Deutschland up?" The young engineer swallowed hard. This answer was going to get him into trouble again. If he said he would rather dance with Hipper, he would see her as the lesser evil, which would probably upset Hipper in her belief of her status and amount of respect she deserved and it would also include the mockery of Prinz Eugen. If he would choose Deutschland as the lesser evil, he would anger Hipper by admitting that he thought she would be the bigger source of wrath. He made up his mind, answered and took one of the proverbial bullets. "I rather dance with Hipper." He said. The reaction he got was not what he had thought would happen. "See, I told you he liked dancing with you." Said Prinz Eugen to her sister. "You really liked the dance we had?" Asked the latter. The young engineer nodded. "Given the circumstances it was a nice dance." He agreed. Before anything else could be said a clearly uncomfortable Hipper continued and pushed the conversation along. "Okay. It is my turn again. Would you rather eat Eagle Union food or the traditional cuisine of Iris?" Asked Hipper her question. The young engineer answered right away. "Iris food is better than that of the Eagle Union." Hipper looked him in the eyes. "I don't believe you would rather eat frogleggs over fast food.I think you are lying." Said Hipper with an evil smile while pushing another shot glass the young engineer's way. The latter looked at the shotglass dismayed. "I did not lie." He tried to evade drinking the shot. "It does not matter, you have to make us believe that you are telling the truth." Countered Hipper and her sister nodded in agreement. "Your game is unfair, you know that?" He said while taking up the shot glass.
Downing its contents while holding his breath he almost choked on it. "You two really are..." He did not continue his curse because he had to cough. "Raspberry liquor? That stuff is for cakes and not to be drunk pure. That is just sick." He continued after getting his revolting tongue and throat under control. The two cruisers meanwhile almost fell off their stools in laughter.

Prinz Eugen regained her composure first. "Okay. This will be the last question if you pass." She stated. "So, what do you like about me? My personality... or my body?" She asked him. Again the young engineer lost his composure. This was the third question that completely threw him off. He looked at Prinz Eugen and tried to figure out what she would want to hear. The amused faces of the two cruisers did not help in any way to figure out how he could find an answer that would get him out of this situation. He sat there for at least a minute until Prinz Eugen could not keep a straight face. "Pfft... You're just too cute when you act all bashful but still can't resist trying to ogle me, ahaha." She started to laugh while the young engineer earned himself an even redder face while trying to find a proper answer. He decided to cut his losses and formulate a believable answer out of his gut feeling. "I like your personality more. Your ability to use your intellect and intelligence as well as your charms. Even though I could go with less of your teasing." He answered and would have loved to just vanish in a hole in the ground. Prinz Eugen looked at the young engineer intensively. "Calm down and unwind a bit. You look like you are a prisoner waiting for their verdict for a deathpenalty." She said while giving the young engineer her teasing smile. "I believe you." She finished to the relief of the young engineer. "You win. Or did you?" She teased him further. Relieved, the young engineer eased up a bit. "Can I have the keycard to our room then?" He asked. "Sure. I will tag along and let you in, that way I still have the key when I want to enter as well." Decided Prinz Eugen.

The young engineer was happy to have made it through this more than uncomfortable game of the two ships. But his relief was quickly replaced with a bit of panic when he tried to stand up and almost fell over straight on his face if not for Prinz Eugen catching him. "Are you alright?" Prinz Eugen asked concerned. The young engineer's head was spinning. He could barely think straight and his sight doubled. It felt like he was just hit by a train and could not comprehend what was going on. "I think I am not well." He slurred his words. Prinz Eugen looked around to figure out the cause of the rapid change of the young engineer's condition. Looking back to the barstool she realised that the raspberry liqueur the young engineer had to take a shot of was one of the beverages designed for the Shipgirls. "Hipper. Did you give him a raspberry shot from our beverages?" She asked her sister. The latter, chatting with another officer, turned around. "Yes, why?" She asked. "The concentration of alcohol in our beverages is too strong for humans to handle." Explained Admiral Hippers younger sister with concern. Hipper grabbed the bottle and looked at the promille average of the beverage. "94%. So it is like he took a huge gulp of Prima-Sprit." Hipper explained. Prinz Eugen sighed. "So he will only feel like garbage and is not in danger?" "It should have knocked him out cold but except for a bad hangover he should be fine. He did not seem drunk when he arrived here anyways." Commented Hipper, without apparently caring that much about the situation, while taking a gulp out of the raspberry liqueur bottle.
Pulling the young engineer's right arm over her shoulders Prinz Eugen supported the young man. "I will bring him to his room." She explained. "You better see that you are apologising to him when he is better." She said to Hipper in an unusually stern tone before leaving the tent, dragging the young engineer more with her than supporting the inebriated attempts of walking of the latter.