Commander's Rounds

Entry 89: Testing ground

"Gooood Morning, Anomaly! How's the sunshine treating you?"

The commander, in all of his time in charge of Azur Lane, never thought he would be greeted after breakfast by a call from Purifier. Even after joining forces with them, she didn't go out of her way to talk to him- just occasionally troll him with memes on Juustagram. "About usual. So, did you call me for a reason?"

"Me? I could go the whole day without calling you, but Yuubari wanted me to tell you some things while she's working. That fox uses me as a gofer all the time. What do I look like to her, a graduate student?"

The commander blinked. "How would you know anything about that?"

"Haha, I try not to think about that too much. When I do that, I get this big headache and pass out for half the day."

He needed a moment to respond to that. "...I think you should get that looked at."

"Hey! You leave being the kinda crazy-hot- by which I mean both- killer machine to me! I don't tell you how to do your job!"

"All right, so what did Yuubari want you to tell me."

"Okay, okay, okay!" Purifier took a very exaggerated deep breath. "Now, here's what the fox say. Now. that Queen Elizabeth has gotten it in her dome that people aren't waiting to cut off the head that wears the crown, he mental state seems to have made her rigging receptive to some upgrades."

The commander hmmed. "What kind of upgrades?"

"The kind of big Ships and Gardens renovation that's all the rage with ships like Nevada, Numbah Wun, all those kinds of ships. Queenie's gonna a get a glow-up, that's for sure! But wait! There's more!"

The commander rubbed his forehead. "What else?"

"The fox says that you should come to the docks, because they're about to test that big, thick, hot booster thingy that Incomparable wanted to ride so bad. They even found some speed freak to pilot it!"

He sighed. "Wait, who would volunteer to test that kind of thing?"

"Augh! Anomalyyyyy! You're breaking my super-advanced techno-balls here! Don't play moron, you know exactly who'd say yes to riding the lightning."

"Yeah, I know." A certain white rabbit who went everywhere like she was always late.

"Aaanyway! If you're not too busy playing with your wife's literal huge mommy milkers, you should come on down and watch the show! Admission is free, fun for the whole family, etc. whatever."

"Tell her I'll be there." The commander stopped the call, and turned to King George. Dido was cleaning up after breakfast, humming softly as she did so.

King George knew what was up. "You have to go out?"

"Yeah." He went over, and gave her a kiss on the lips. "I love you."

She smiled. "Now, don't forget someone, Alex."

"Of course not." He dropped down, and gave her a kiss on her round tummy. "Love you too."

----------------

The commander got dressed and made it to the dock in time, and Shimakaze was being kitted out to go at speeds that no ship was ever really designed to go, the white rabbit looking for all the world like a little bunny-eared astronaut. Her rigging was out, and braced and balanced to it it was a huge booster unit in the back which was currently held up by struts meant to fall away once the booster was launched.

Marblehead smiled. "All right, a couple of other things. The pressure suit is mainly there to monitor your vitals, and we installed a little deflector in the boost unit based on the shielding in Prinz Eugen's equipment. This wouldn't protect you from enemy fire, but it'll keep the air resistance off of you for some smooth sailing. We also designed some maneuvering bits so that you don't go airborne."