The adventures of the young engineer and Prinz Eugen Volume 2.

No. 6 Chapter 5

The rest of the journey took Prinz Eugen and the young engineer another week. They traveled escorted by the Eagle Union fleet through the north Atlantic and the Caribbean sea to Guiana.

The Pilot entered the mouth of the river Mahury in the early morning. North Carolina and the rest of her fleet escorted the ship of the Prinz Eugen and the young engineer up the stream until they passed Fort Diamond. From there on out the pilot made its way up the river to the industrial harbor south of Cayenne. A small motorboat passed them and signaled to the young engineer that it was the harbor pilot and that he was to follow the small vessel to a spot to moor. The young engineer turned the pilot around and followed the harbor pilot back down the stream away from the old cargo ships mooring spots to a pier east of it. There he was already signaled with semaphore flags to moor the pilot next to an older looking river patrol vessel. The young engineer obliged and reduced the speed of the ship and slowly moved it adjacent to the pier. Prinz Eugen meanwhile walked outside of the bridge and started to throw mooring lines over the ship's railing to the pier. The dockworkers reached for them and quickly started to attach the Pilot to the pier. Without an issue the old Pilot was secured to the pier and the two citizens from Ironblood disembarked from their ship. The young engineer thanked the dockworkers for their help, while they waited for someone to greet them.
Looking down the long pier they saw a group already walking up towards them from the land side. By the looks of it they seemed to be all Shipgirls from Iris Libre. At least their clothing looked like a combination of traditional Iris fashion from in between the 16th to early 19th century, mixed with more modern fashion. Soon the young engineer made out Richelieu in the group that was closing in. The tall woman had changed from her formal dress uniform into a cream colored summer dress and stood out between the smaller Shipgirls surrounding her. The young engineer smiled and started to walk towards the group of Iris ships. Prinz Eugen meanwhile remained in her place next to the gangway to their ship.

When the young engineer and the Iris ships met, he was about to greet them when he was overtaken by Richelieu greeting him in the language of the Royal Islands. "Welcome, it is a pleasure to have you here. I hope your journey to our current headquarters was without any troubles. Please let me welcome you to our headquarters and the capital of Iris Libre." She opened up and presented the view of the mainland with an elegant wave of her right arm. The young engineer thought to understand the signal he assumed she was sending him immediately. Richelieu knew that he spoke Iris. Addressing him in a different language meant to him that she intended to keep others oblivious to that fact. The formal greeting also told him that he had to behave more formally as well in this situation to not let anything the battleship had planned slip. He therefore saluted the delegation of Shipgirls and greeted them back. "It is a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the warm welcome." Stopping the salute he walked closer and shook the hand of Richelieu and the other Shipgirls, even though they all had presented a kiss hand. "I take it Prinz Eugen is staying at your boat and awaits our formal greeting to her?"One of the shipgirls asked the young engineer. Letting the jab the Shipgirl made against their ship slide, the young engineer answered her respectfully. "I assume so, at least she seemed to be unwilling to come your way."

Richelieu nodded and with a gesture of her hand a tall, red haired Iris ship walked up next to her. "Surcouf, would you be so kind and show our guest his room and afterwards our headquarters? We will meet at 12 in our conference room." Richelieu ordered the other Shipgirl. Surcouf nodded and motioned the young engineer to follow her.

The latter did as he was told and Surcouf and he separated from the group and made their way down the pier. "It is a pleasure to meet you Surcouf." The young engineer greeted her personally while they walked towards the large white building in the middle of the base. "Thank you." The submarine answered with a few words. The young engineer realised that the cruiser submarine seemed to feel about him like most of the other Iris Libre ships. He as a sailor of the Ironblood Navy was their sworn enemy and it seems that they had little interest in seeing past the uniforms. The young engineer resigned in trying to be friendly, since he guessed that he would manage to do little about their dislike towards him with just his words. Nonetheless, the young engineer was amazed at the sight of the person next to him. Surcouf completely broke with everything he had known about submarines so far. Her physical appearance was closer to that of a heavy cruiser. Apparently when she was turned into a living being, whatever decided to shape her the way she was, made her appearance that of a grown young woman instead of a child, like all the other Ironblood submarines the young engineer had met so far. He supposed that was because of Surcouf's special role as a cruiser submarine. There was afterall no other ship like her. A submarine armed with the weapons of a cruiser and the displacement of an destroyer. Not wanting to stare or inconvenience her, the young engineer focused back on the surroundings they walked past. One of the large docks caught his interest. In it he could see the massive hulk of a battleship that was partially constructed. The big rust patches on the superstructure also told him that it seemed that this was one of the ships that was under construction during the time when all other ships were turned into sentient and living beings and has been left to rot since then. Walking past the dock, the two headed towards the big white building that looked like a town capitol. Over its entrance he could see golden letters spelling out the purpose the building served. "Quartier général de la Marine nationale". Entering the building it looked like a palace from the inside. The floors were held in cream colored marble while the finest cloth in the colors of the Iris flag served as curtains. Between the large windows exotic plants and pictures of notable individuals were placed, while the furniture was made out of dark tropical wood with cream colored padding contrasting it. Surcouf showed the young engineer his room and all the other places important for him. Such as the dining room, the conference room of Iris Libre and the conference room where all the delegations would meet. All of it reminded the young engineer of his stay at the Royal Islands and the great meeting there. But luckily this time he was included right from the beginning and not forced into mind numbing inactivity for almost five weeks.
This time it would be different, he thought.