The Warship's Diary

First Sortie

Monday, 11th May 2020
Tomorrow will be my first sortie in this base, and technically, the first sortie i will be assigned to. I don't have anything to do today, so i went to the training area to practice, time is as precious as money. On my way to the training area, i met Gajah Mada, again. He was still shocked about what i did yesterday, and he said i'm like a "young legendary soldier from an anime who is not even 18 years old yet". I was surprised when he said what i'm like, why is that? Because i'm already 20 and he thought i'm not even 18. Although i was lazy to asks around and see what others think of how old i am, i asked around anyway, and the results seems ridiculous. Most corvettes think i am 18, aircraft carriers think i am 18, frigates and destroyers think i am 17. Submarines thought i was 16. I kinda wonder why my looks made me look younger. There is nothing more particularly interesting to note today.

Tuesday, 12th May 2020
Today, i will sortie with Liaoning, Sanjaya, Gajah Mada, Diponegoro, and with I Gusti Ngurah Rai. This sortie's objective is to scout the area and search for an enemy base if there is one, due to increasing enemy presence in the area. I was enthusiastic at first until everyone asked me to defend the aircraft carrier from FUO ships and planes, as soon as i hear that, the enthusiasm melts, because i actually wanted to sink a few FUO ships to show what Indonesian HWS are capable of. I would asks everyone why they chose me for defensive, but i knew the answer already from the start, i could prevent a bullet from reaching its destination mid-air. I equipped my equipment as fast as i could and waited for the others to finish(it's probably just me being too dilligent at the boots camp and at the base, so much that i equip my equipments faster than everyone in the fleet with me, to which i later regret, because Gajah Mada started asking questions again). The sortie took a total 7 hours straight, 1 hour for going to the area needed to be scouted and to return to the base. The first 25 minutes scouting the area went smoothly, no storm, no rains, no clouds, and no FUO. Then the FUO started appearing, 4 submarine, a corvette, and a cruiser. I followed my orders and sailed near my fleet's aircraft carrier, while the other went on with the offensive. While the battle is happening, the enemy shot torpedoes at me and the aircraft carrier which both of us easily dodged due to the distance between us and them. When i was firing artillery shots from behind to support my allies, i noticed an enemy drone just above the battle area, watching us. It is obvious the enemy has either an aviation type ship or an aircraft carrier. But the drone didn't stay long, perhaps noticed me staring at it. It left when the battle has yet to end, this gave me an uneasy feeling. My fleet emerged victorious from the battle, the enemy had the corvette and a submarine sunk, but none of my fleet's ship sunk, just greatly damaged, and some drones were also destroyed. The enemy retreated although their chance of victory still exist, making it even more suspicious. The flagship, Liaoning insisted on continuing the sortie, i tried to convince her about sending scout drones only and let the fleet stay where they were, but she didn't care anyway. We went for 1 hour, encountering the FUO fleet twice but without encountering any ship with aviation abilities or aircraft carriers. I began to think that my fleet is falling into a trap, but kept silent about it. By that time, I Gusti Ngurah Rai and Sanjaya were heavily damaged, so they retreated to the base accompanied by Diponegoro. Now that there are only three ships left to scout the area, i tried to convince Liaoning to get the rest of us to retreat to avoid risks, but she told us the faster the area is scouted, the better it is for us, so we continued scouting the currently suspicious area. 2 hours later without an encounter with FUO fleets, we found an airfield in one of the islands, a lot of FUO ships were stationed at the island as well, so that's why we couldn't find any more FUO ships, they were trying to hide their presence, and there was no aircraft carrier or the ship with aviation ability so there was an airfield instead. My fleet were about to retreat to base to report what was found, but one drone patrolling the air saw us and alerted the enemy's main force. We began going as fast as possible to the direction where reinforcement is coming from, i can see bullets flew past my fleet, we were being chased and fired at. The chase went on for 25 minutes, then we were flanked by the enemy, at the back and at the front, going left or right was not a choice , because Gajah Mada found naval mines before we tried to go left or right. I begin to panic as the enemy closes by, then everything went slow again, i can see the enemy fire slow bullets, as well as my allies firing back. In order for all of us to get back to our base without anyone sinking, all we had to do was survive until reinforcements come, so i shot bullets to stop enemy bullets mid-air, even the enemy was shocked, but not my allies, they had seen it before. 10 minutes trying to stay alive while enemy is bombarding you felt like 10 hours, the enemy recovered from the shock faster than my expectation. Reinforcement came at the right time, they sunk FUO ships at one side of the flank, my fleet joined the reinforcement fleet consisting of 6 ship and retreated as fast as possible, but the sortie didn't stop there. The feeling of everything being slow stoppped too, meaning that i wasn't panicking anymore, which i do not know was good or bad. The enemy set up naval mine while my fleet were battling and being chased, this caused us to go in a way that is longer than the fastest way to go back to base. To make it worse, the reinforcement fleet didn't know the location of the airfield, so they almost led us back to the enemy airfield, i reacted to this by going to the way where enemy surface turrets(surface turret is a turret set up at the surface of the water, they float, and can fire at their enemy on sight, but doesn't move) were set up, the reinforcement fleet knew there were surface turrets there, and told me to pick the the other route which led to the airfield. There was no time to explain why i chose the other way with my fleet agreeing my choice, so i pointed at FUO drones and FUO planes coming towards us from the direction of the route leading us to the airfield, they were at least clever enough to figure out what i was trying to mean so we went the other way. We were supposed to meet FUO's turret and face the enemy air force as well as the enemy ships, but our airforce came first, so it would at least lower our chance of sinking and dying. The time we tried to retreat while avoiding mines until the battle started took around 53 minutes, the battle took 32 minutes. The rest of the time was taken for fixing a few ships whose cruising equipment was damaged, me included. We lost 2 ships from the reinforcement fleet, 34 drones, and 7 planes, i do not know the enemies loss. The damage my fleet's aircraft carrier took was only from drones and a few enemy shots. Gajah Mada had heavy damages, but because he is a destroyer, he was quick enough to avoid enemy torpedoes. I took the heaviest damage out of the three ships that was left in the scouting fleet, i had to shield Liaoning from all torpedoes, and i have to deal with enemy aircrafts too to protect her, the enemy realized if they want to sink our aircraft carrier, i had to be sunk first, so i became one of the main targets for the enemy, thankfully, some other ships became shields for me to prevent me from sinking. My fleet went to the admiral's room to report our scouting and headed to the medical room. Before going to the medical room, i stayed behind while Gajah Mada and Liaoning went to the medical room first, i talked with the admiral privately in the admiral's room, i explained my experience regarding how everything felt slow, and also about my theory regarding what happened. He was seriously listening until he asked how i panicked at the fleet excercise, then i answered that his words pressured me and made me panic, and he laughed about how he was thinking on which fleet to put me in for my first sortie, not that i was going to get in trouble, getting discharged was what i thought might happen to me if my fleet lost the fleet excercise, getting discharged is the worst that could happen to me(if i die in one of the sortie or operations, at least i would die as a soldier). I went to the medical room after that and spent the night at the medical room(i'm writing all this in the medical room right now).

Wednesday, 13th May 2020
I spent the whole day in the medical room, Liaoning could leave the medical room by 3 pm and Gajah Mada left by 5 pm. The only one who came to visit me were Naggala, Cut Nyak Dhien, and Teuku Umar. Teuku Umar was rather happy that my skill to fire at bullets mid-air forced me to become the bodyguard of the most important ship in the fleet, which was one of the position most HWS navy soldier type doesn't like. Nanggala was making a weird face because based on my skill at the fleet excercise, i wouldn't be here for the whole day. Cut Nyak Dhien was more interested in knowing about my skill to shoot bullets mid-air thanks to Gajah Mada who told her about it, note that i haven't told anyone except the admiral about my slow motion experience. I got out of the medical room at night, 9 pm. When i got back to my room, the room was dusty again, although not as much as the first time i entered this room, i decided to clean the room up, write my diary or journal, and sleep.