Commander's Rounds Volume 1

Entry 66: Misgivings

The commander decided that the best place for the meeting was Eugen's Bar.

It was actually more useful than one might think- Considering how many of the people who were going to be involved were from the Iron Blood contingent, plus this wasn't really an official strategy session, so a less-formal setting was useful for getting people relaxed and willing to listen to whatever he had to say, and it wasn't as though all that many of his ships really stood on formality to begin with.

As though to prove his point, Deutschland was in the middle of explaining things to the commander, and had certain opinions about the deployment. "Well, if you don't let me deploy with my sister, you can forget about my help."

The commander shrugged. "I've already considered that. Your opinions are well-known about this sort of thing, so you and Spee will be together on this one. No tricks."

Azuma spoke up next. "While I appreciate you considering us for this operation, you seem to have assembled a great deal of firepower already- why involve us, when you have all of those battlecruisers on hand?"

"Because the best we can do is guess where they'll strike next. Even if we narrow down the general area, there will still be a few potential targets. And with Agir not fully equipped yet and Incomparable still out of action, we need more people capable of fighting these ships. So, we need the other up-armed cruisers to help build up effective ambush squads."

Prinz Eugen sashayed over with a smile, and leaned over to place a drink in front of Drake. The Royal cruiser immediately went to drinking. "If that's what we're going to do, then sure. I'm up for it, if it's going to be an adventure. But I think there's more to your plan here."

"You're right." The commander leaned back. "I felt it was important to involve as many Iron Blood ships as possible. Given who our opponents are and the strong passions they have, they might be tempted to tangle with the successors of the Hochseeflotte. Even if this buys us only a few seconds, it could make a tremendous difference in whether we capture them or whether they get away from us again."

Mackensen received her own drink, and she gave Eugen a wink, the heavy cruiser responding to the gesture with a playful smile. "And at least for myself, I can't really say that "successor" is a term that applies too strongly."

"Duly noted." The commander noted that the usually perky Repulse was looking rather pensive, so he turned to her. "Is something on your mind?"

Repulse was startled. "Huh? Well, I was just thinking... I mean, I'll fight if I have to, but I wish that we didn't have to, you know, do this sort of thing to Tiger and all those other ships..."

Kongou smiled, and placed a comforting hand on Repulse's shoulder. "The whole point of this operation is to capture her and Princess Royal so we can talk to them and find out the reason this is going on, correct?"

"Correct." The commander relaxed. "While much of what Purifier has told us tracks with what we've observed, and some of what she said lined up with what Revenge told us, we still can't consider our prisoner to be completely reliable. So we need to find some things out for ourselves by capturing at least one of these rebel ships."

Drake had already drained her mug. "Plus, it'll tell us if Purifier has been telling us the truth about other things."

"Yeah." the commander sat back. "Now, this is all very basic. We'll have a full plan once Albert finishes his report, but that may take a little while yet."

Albert walked into the bar himself, with something missing from his uniform. The commander called out to him. "Off duty, Leutnant Kesler?"

"Briefly." Was the response. He walked up to the counter to address Prinz Eugen. "Excuse me, but I left something behind when I came to see you a couple of days ago."