Commander's Rounds Volume 1

Entry 80: The Nature of Bonds

Fu Shun sat on the docks, her laptop ready as she looked out over the bay. She picked up her handset, and called in. "Okay, An Shan? Chang Chun? Are you ready?"

The two destroyers stood near each other, tugging on their clothes as they got used to the new equipment on their rigging. Fu Shun had been trying her best to make a kind of guided missile that could actually work against the sirens, and the two destroyers were being used as testbeds for that technology. The missiles were heavier than torpedoes, and so required some adjustment for balance and launch stability.

An Shan radioed back. "If you're really sure they're not going to explode this time, we're ready to go!"

Now that Fu Shun was satisfied that the missiles would launch reliably without exploding and that they'd go in the correct direction enough of the time to matter, it was time to mount them on rigging and try them out against an actual target, so she chose the hardest target on the base. At least, as far guided weapons were concerned.

She called the subject. "HMS Diadem, are you ready?"

Diadem brushed off her apron. The light cruiser was as stacked as any other member of the Dido-class, and wore a uniform with largely the same cut as Sirius's to show off the endowments common to her line. Her skin was a browner hue, however, just a shade darker than Jamaica's, which was a strong contrast against the white frills of her uniform. She possessed long black hair and golden eyes, and her uniform had a reasonable skirt, though her dark legs were covered with white stockings, as was the way of the Royal maids.

Diadem smiled, and called back, giving a curtsy to the distant destroyers. "Of course, of course~ Send your missiles on their way."

Chang Chun called in. "Are you sure about this? I mean, these are dummy warheads, but are you really fine with us actually firing these at you?"

HMS Diadem giggled. "Don't worry, I wasn't afraid of the live ones, these practice missiles are nothing to think about in comparison."

Fu Shun nodded. "All right! An Shan, Chang Chun, let 'em go!"

The two of them each launched a missile at Diadem, trying their best to lock on to Diadem, but it was impossible to get anything solid. The missiles had an incredible amount of trouble "Seeing" her, and so the first missile spiraled away on its own course, but the second missile went straight on- and kept on going perfectly straight, not bothering to adjust course towards Diadem. After the missile streaked by, Diadem smiled, and brushed her hair back with her hand.

Fu Shun logged the results, and called in again. "Okay, try again!"

The two destroyers then each fired another missile, and the results were different, only in that they missed in different ways. Diadem gingerly skated aside to let a missile pass by, because it was a bit too close for comfort- again, it didn't move to meet her as a functioning missile should have. The other missile went where An Shan wanted it to, but where it was just happened to be where Diadem wasn't. In no cases did the guidance systems seem to get up and get to work- they just didn't recognize her as a target.

Fu Shun wasn't about to send more good missiles after bad, and after typing out the results. She sighed, and closed the laptop. "All right, that's all for today. I'll make a whole heaping bunch of adjustments and try again later."

Diadem gave a curtsy, and headed back to the docks, followed by the other destroyers.

There had been another observer to the whole affair- Chen Hai had sent up one of her planes to watch the test while she was sitting with the commander. He had wanted to see what Fu Shun had been trying to cook up on her own, and the fact that she had been tinkering with guided missiles was...