Azur Lane The Siren War

Do you mind?

The early morning naval exercise had been a tiring one, an Eagle Union fleet maneuvered with a small US Navy fleet consisting of USS Carl Vinson CVN-70, USS Sampson DDG-102 and USS Valley Forge CG-50 while being supported by US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets and Eagle Union F6F Hellcats. Vestal stayed as close as possible to Enterprise in case her ship gear were to get damaged again, her patching was very speedy as well. Enterprise guided a squadron of twelve SBD-5 Dauntless dive bombers to engage a decommissioned cargo ship that was condemned to be sunk, twelve 1000 lbs bombs were dropped of which seven hit, instantly blowing the cargo ship into pieces. "Goodness me Enterprise, you were supposed to drop drop a single bomb onto that cargo ship, now Alabama won't have a chance to conduct main battery firing tests on a floating target," Yorktown CV-5, her elder sister said disapprovingly. Enterprise didn't really seem to notice though as she was constantly smiling, thinking all day long about the night before. "What's the matter? You seem somewhat happy today, I don't think I've seen you smile in months," her sister asked. "Oh it's nothing, I just had a really great day yesterday," Enterprise answered cheerfully and sped off back to Pearl Harbor. Yorktown smiled, she knew this was probably the work of her little sister's commanding officer.

Captain Tanner slumped down onto the sofa in the office, he only received three hours of sleep and the effects of the caffeine began to wear off. He yawned before closing his eyes to take a small nap. Hornet suddenly barged into the office and looked around the room before her eyes settled onto Captain Tanner. "How did you do it?!" She asked happily after she strolled over to him. "Do what?" He responded through squinted eyes. "Enterprise is so happy, I don't think I've seen her in such happiness for a long time," Hornet said with a great smile. Captain Tanner however wasn't really paying attention, he was on the verge of dozing off. Hornet gave him a little nudge and he opened his eyes again. "Sorry, all I did was take her to the pub back in town, she enjoyed a nice pizza and apparently her favorite mocktail was there as well, I encouraged her to take more slices and that somehow turned into a brighter day for her after I had a bit of a conversation with her," Captain Tanner said softly before snoozing again. "Don't sleep! I wanna know more!" Hornet whispered loudly and shook his shoulders. It was no use, Captain Tanner already began to snore like a running engine. 

Captain Tanner opened his eyes to see himself back in his room, at first he thought he was dreaming as he did not remember walking to his room by himself. He then spotted a note beside him on his side table, picked it up and began to read it. 'Hi Nolan, I wanted to discuss about how you think I did during our exercise this morning, however I found you fast asleep on the couch in your office. I carried you back to your room so you could rest better and more comfortably. -Enterprise CV-6' the letter said. Captain Tanner reddened with embarrassment as he thought how many people would have a seen a ship girl carrying him in her arms back to his room. He decided not to dwell too long on that thought and headed down to the cafeteria since it was close to lunchtime. 

On his way he bumped into Yorktown who happened to be walking with Captain Butcher. "Greetings Captain Tanner, I've heard so much about you, I believe you are the reason my younger sister is exceedingly happy today am I correct?" Yorktown greeted and held out her hand. "Nah I didn't do much, good to meet you. Good afternoon as well Captain Butcher," Captain Tanner responded while shaking Yorktown's hand. "I believe Enterprise is waiting for you in the cafeteria, you should go and catch up with her," Captain Butcher said and waved back at Captain Tanner. "Yeah thanks," Captain Tanner answered and continued to walk to the cafeteria once again.

Upon entering the cafeteria, Captain Tanner saw Enterprise sitting down silently at a table far closer to the windows and staring outside at the sea. He walked up to her and sat down in the chair opposite of her and smiled. "Where's your canned rations?" Captain Tanner asked and looked down at her empty tray. "I don't want to eat any more rations, I want to eat freshly made main courses, it's quite unhealthy to eat that kind of stuff for long periods anyway. Let's go line up, I was waiting for you," Enterprise chuckled. Captain Tanner smiled, picked up a tray from a tray table and lined up with Enterprise. "So there's two kinds of courses for lunch, cheeseburgers and beef steak. What kind of course should I choose?" Enterprise asked her commanding officer. "I'm taking cheeseburgers because I love any kind of food with loads of cheese, I think you should take the beef steak since you haven't eaten any sort of freshly grilled meat in a long time," Captain Tanner replied. Enterprise nodded her head with a smile and asked for three beef steaks and a mountain of potato fries, to which Captain Tanner looked at in astonishment. 'How could someone eat that much food?' He thought. "Oh most Eagle Union ship girls eat a lot of food, it's kind of our fuel so we eat a lot, I used to eat at least 5-7 large cans of rations every meal before you got me back into eating proper food," Enterprise said while looking at him. Again she answered Captain Tanner without him asking the question. "Hey do you mind telling me how you're able to know what I want to ask you without me even telling you what I want to ask?" Captain Tanner asked with curiosity. "Well it's quite hard to explain, it's like I can just look at you and if something comes to your mind, I can read it somehow. This doesn't apply to other ship girls and Sirens however, I cannot tell whatever they're thinking of for some reason," Enterprise answered. Captain Tanner didn't ask anything else, he thought this is probably the way the scientists in the US Navy designed the ship girl Enterprise to be. 

After eating and talking about Enterprise's performance during the exercise, Captain Tanner became curious again and asked Enterprise another question. "I know that the scientists created you inside a cylindrical tank, but how did they get you attached to your ship, like you can dissolve the USS Enterprise CV-6 into cubes and they instantly lock onto you in the form of ship gear," he questioned. "That isn't something I really know, my sisters and I were raised by an Admiral called Michael Machilmore and his wife Susan Machilmore. They were sort of our parental figures, they treated us like their daughters since they had no children of their own," Enterprise said. Captain Tanner nodded his head and looked outside, he remembered reading that ship girls had to be raised by a voluntary couple, this is so that the ship girls don't turn against humans and have somebody to love and fight for.