Ironblood's Helmsman

Prologue pt. 3

General POV

Morning broke above the convoy, 2 merchant ships had gone down in the night specifically the Evergiven and the Queen Elizabeth. Alongside them was JS Maya who had suffered a very bad hit directly to her VLS Tubes.

On the Antonio Luna, the morale was at an all-time low, thousands of men, a multi-million dollar Destroyer, and tons of needed cargo had all sunk to the bottom of the sea and they couldn't do anything about it.

Alex: "Status on crew?" he asked.

Laurien: "Not good, morale is rock bottom and some aren't eating." she reported, "Doc has his hands full at the moment with survivors."

Alex: "Ok." he nodded, "Andy, what's our ETA to Japan?"

Andy: "About 2 days," I responded tiredly, "who was the coward who abandoned the helm last night?"

Alex: "Still working on that chief." he said, "Can you keep chugging for a while?"

Andy: "I can do it," I nodded, "just need some coffee."

Laurien: "You've never had coffee before." she said.

I shrugged that concern off.

Andy: "I never needed it before, but now I need to stay up near indefinitely, just grab me a cup." I said.

Laurien nodded and went down to the mess to grab a cup of coffee. In the meantime I had my eyes glued to the RADAR screen next to me.

Alex: "You good?" he asked.

Andy: "That Kirov...." I trailed off, "it's hunting us down from the rear, and we can't do shit because it outguns all of us."

Alex pats me on the shoulder.

Alex: "He'll slip up, then we can avenge our comrades." he said.

I nodded and went back to keeping the ship in formation. Suddenly a radio on an open channel crackled to life before a person with a Russian Accent hailed the entire convoy.

Nakhimov: "American Convoy, this is Russian Warship, we will leave you alone if and only if you surrender those supplies." he said, "We will back off and let you go if you surrender your remaining ships."

Alex hopped on the secure UN channel to talk with the rest of the escorts.

Alex: "War Hero to the rest of convoy, come in." he said, pissed.

'Pirate': "Pirate here, do you hear this guy?!" she said, bewildered.

'Gemstone': "Gemstone here, yup we hear him." he said.

Alex: "The fucking nerve of this guy." he said, "How should we respond Pirate?"

Pirate paused in contemplation, a tense few seconds passed before she responded.

'Pirate': "......you guys have full control and responsibility over what you do." she said, "But, if I was to give orders.......give those lazy Russian asses hell."

Alex: "Yes ma'am." he said.

'Gemstone': "Wilco Pirate, War Hero, you do the honors." he said.

Alex: "Wilco, if worse comes to worse though...." he trailed off, gathering the escort group's attention, "it was an honor sailing with you guys...."

'Pirate': "It's been an honor with you guys." she said, catching onto what Alex was implying.

Alex hung up, walked a short distance and picked up the radio with the open channel.