The Lone Queen Of The North

Chapter 3: Onwards to St. Nazaire

           "Destroyer Z-25 bearing 3-5-0, and cruiser Leipzig bearing 0-9-0," the radar operator, Talia Von Arnim said.

          "Noted," Michael said before turning to his sonar operator, Gerhardt Mannerheim, "and what about the U-Boats? Are they making any move to intercept?"

          "That's a negative, captain," Gerhardt replied, eyes glued to his console.

          "Strange, they've been like that since we left Kiel..." Franz Sturmvogel, gunnery officer of main weaponry, stated.

          Michael nodded in agreement, studying the information that his console was feeding him. He switched over to the contact segment of his console and contacted the engineering room. The face that greeted him was that of his clingy step-sister, Helena Ludemann.

          "Hello Helena," Michael said with a sigh, knowing well what would happen afterwards.

           "Hi Big Bro," the captain's step-sister chirped, "come to talk to me, have you?~"

            With a barely suppressed sigh, Michael nodded in reply.

          "I've mainly called to check in on the other two..."

          "Oh... well, both Wolfgang and Gretel are doing just fine... they said 'hi' by the way."

          "Well that's good, then. Give my greetings to them too. Thank you."

           "Anything for you, dear brother.~"

           The call ended, and Michael put his hand to his face. He shook his head and released a sigh of exasperation. Gretel Beitzen and Wolfgang Zenker were both engineers, as was his sister. They were the best the academy had to offer, though only if they were better in how they acted, Michael wouldn't have been wanting to check on the engine room every hour. His overly clingy sister was the one thing that drove him nuts. And he hated it.

            "How many times do I need to tell her; I'm not interested in that crap. Dear Lord!"

           "Having sibling problems, Captain?" Alicia Trude, secondary weapons and missile officer, spoke as she came back from taking a quick shower.

           "If you can call it that..." Michael grumbled.

            Alicia laughed lightly, knowing what her captain was going through, before heading back to her station beside Franz's. Tirpitz, however was quiet throughout the whole conversation. She hadn't uttered a word, not even to her captain, whom she'd always want to talk with. Rudolf Eichmann, First Mate, noticed this.

          "Anything bothering you, Tirpitz?" he asked.

          "Yeah..." the Mental Model replied, "I'm just wondering as to why they didn't attack us outright."

          "As long as they don't attack us, I'm fine with them staying where they are. I don't want us to take unnecessary damage." Michael said, joining the interaction.

          The other two nodded in agreement, and settled back into a peaceful silence, excepting the faint beeping from the crews' consoles.

        "Right," Michael said, standing up with a stretch, "I'm gonna get something to eat, I'll be back in a minute."

         The crew muttered their acknowledgments and refocused on their tasks. Standing up, Michael made his way from the bridge to the small mess hall through a short series of halls and an elevator trip. Along the way, the ship's doctor; Willhelm Von Busch, joined him.