Azur Lane: Semper Vigilans

Chapter 0: The Mission gone wrong.

???: "Speech"

*Thoughts*

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[LOCATION]: HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6, Sub-floor 21, ONI Quadrant, Admiral Serin Osman's Office.

[DATE/TIME]: 1/2/2558 0827 Military Time.

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[Commander Magnus Bowen's POV]:

The only sound, filling the desolate corridor towards the Director of Naval Intelligence's office, was filled with the clacking of my black boots against the marble floor. Reaching the security checkpoint, I nod to the ONISEC (ONI Security) personnel and hand over my M6G Personal Defense Weapon, before walking through the scanner. At the other side I am met by Lieutenant Shepard, saluting me.

"At ease, Lieutenant."

Shepard immediately snaps his arm down, following up with the simple phrase:

Shepard: "The Director is awaiting you, Commander."

"Lead the way."

Shepard nods and walks towards a door at the end of the secondary hallway. Inputting his credentials, he opens the door and leads me in.

Shepard: "The Admiral is behind the door. Hope you are not late."

"It's 0829. I'll be fine."

I walk towards the wooden door with the shining white insignia of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Shepard (Under his nose): "She likes to move her clock 2 minutes forward."

Hearing the comment, I raise an eyebrow but don't pay it much attention. Pushing the door open, I am greeted by the simple, but intriguing office of the Director. Big wooden desk in the middle of the room, several plants dotted next to the walls of the room, 3 big holographic screens filled with too much information to process with one glance. And behind the desk, staring at me with serious brown eyes is none other than the Admiral herself - Serin Osman. I immediately snap to attention.

Osman: "You are late. At ease."

"So I guess the Lt wasn't kidding when he said you move your clock forward."

Osman: "No. It's 0831. It took you 2 minutes to get ready to enter the office. The door is thin, I heard a decent amount of your conversation with the Lieutenant. You were supposed to be here at 0830. Make note of your time management, Commander."

"Noted, ma'am. But I assume you did not summon me here to talk about time?"

Osman: "Indeed," - she sighs - "I'll be blunt: we are retaking Requiem. The operation will start on the 7th of February, the moment the INF-101 drops out of slipspace in Requiem's SoE. That is unless something changes with the plan."

"The Forerunner infested shield world?"

Osman: "Same one, and we need someone to run advance recon on the slipspace exit location. It might be covered in debris, hindering our firing capabilities, or 'Mdama could have positioned his ships directly on the exit, making us a fish in the barrel. We really don't want to lose the pride of the post-war navy. Imagine the morale decrease when people find out that the Infinity was shot up because of poor planning. Which brings me to my next point: I want you to deploy there with your prowler within 72 hours."

"3 days for recon. But, ma'am, why not just send in a corvette, have it check it out for a few seconds and then slip out the moment they are done? With all due respect, I feel like the deployment of a Retrofitted Sahara Prowler like the Purity is a gross misallocation of resources."