The Shackles Of Affection | Male Warship | Azur Lane

Chapter 28 | Remember Me! I Will Protect You!

(For lore reasons! I feel the need to inform you! Hornet and Cowpens we're married on May the 4th! It's worth mentioning the Battle of the Coral Sea happened sooner then May Unlike what It DID IRL Due to Siren Tampering, and other factors of course. So before we continue the story let me lay out a short timeline of events so far!)

Pearl Harbor: December 7th 1941, Coral Sea: 1942 February 4th, Doolittle Raid/Battle Of Japanese Sea:  1942 April 4th Two months after the Coral Sea. Hornet and Cowpens Marriage: 1942 May the 4th, Roughly five months after they began dating! As they began during mid to early December. Battle Of Midway: Unknown/Not Yet Begun. Battle Of Santa Cruz: Unknown/Not Yet Begun. Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: Not Yet Begun. Battle of the Philippine Sea: Unknown. The Final Battle: Unknown

---Arc: The Life Of The Work Horse Matthews---

---May 8th---

---South China Sea---

---USS Matthews Point Of View---

Free France bound, weathering the storm, waves and winds battering the fleet of unazured cargo and armed vessels. Our speed is cut in half, the wind, the waves all against us. We could change course, but the idea is lost unto me. I wasn't interested in arriving late, I wasn't interested in staying out at sea longer than I needed. Every minute out at sea is a minute we risk being attacked from the sky or from beneath the waters by submarine. We're deep in enemy waters. An our only cover was the storm. Ships sway, ships list, ships groan and creak as their Kiel's buckle and flex over and down each wave! Bows; bashing and cutting through the waters as they raise and plunge over and over again! I shield my face from the rain and wind with an arm! An using a little safety squint as I pushed through the storm, leading the pack to a colony of Free France! According to my calculations! We're 350 miles off the coast! The howl of the wind, the crashing of waves, it's all that break the silence of the moment. My hydrophones are rendered utterly useless! I can't hear sounds in the waters over the crash of water against my hull neither can my fleet. Their, ahead of us, on a heading of north east! "SMOKE!!!! 40 Degree's!" Radio silence officially broken, ships AHEAD! I don't see the smoke, but the other ships and their human crews have! It's until I crashed down another high hill of waves!

That I'm set and perched high at the highest point of a wave! That I can see the ships ahead! "Hell ships!!!" Another batch of radio silence broken as another ship crests the wall of water! (A hell ship is a ship with extremely inhumane living conditions or with a reputation for cruelty among the crew. Its now generally refers to the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army to transport Allied prisoners of war.) Azured ships, wearing shackles around the necks, legs, and arms, dragged across the waters atop their backs, dragged by their necks! Behind unazured Hell ships! Alive or dead!? Surrounded by armed troop transport ships like Terukuni Maru! Diving down the hill of water! Waves form between us yet again! My vision onto them, obscured! They haven't noticed us yet? "GUNS AT THE READY!!! PREPARE FOR WARRRR!" I shout, extending out my rigging! 4 sets of quad 40mm multipurpose guns, and two 5inch single barreled guns on stern and bow extend atop the rigging! Reconfigured from combat support tender! Back to armed cargo vessel before leaving port on the 5th! I was given extra KICK with one more main gun then I'd normally have. IT came at a cost of total cargo I could carry! But allowed me to support and protect far better! Climbing over the second hilled wave! I can finally see ALL that stood in front us! The entire enemy fleet! Hell Ship Aikoku Maru, had her guns training towards us! For a hell ship! She was armed to the TEETH! For a moment! My heart sinks! As I acknowledged the number of weaponry! On this converted Ocean Liner!