Haida's travels, an Arpeggio Blue Steel fanfic.
By: Set3
It was the near future, all was well. Or so we thought. Without warning, a fleet of warships came out from the depths of the ocean, we now know as the "Fleet of Fog". Resembling, in appearance, warships from World War Two. But, they were capable of so much more than their "mundane" inspirations. Identifiable by their old style, they can be much easier to identify these ships by the glowing tribal markings that ran along their hulls. This "Fleet of Fog" seemed to have only one mission: to forcibly remove through deadly means, all ships controlled by humans, warships and civilian alike. They hailed from no country and showed no favourites. The nations of earth were forced out of the oceans whether they wanted to or not. All the nations of earth that had even the semblance of a navy banded together in the pacific ocean to confront the "Fleet of Fog" for one decisive battle. The best and most advanced humanity had to offer to rid the oceans of this menace. Humanity failed.
The might of earth's nations paled in comparison to the overwhelming ferocity of the Fleet of Fog.
Since then, humanity could no longer sail the oceans without fear of reprisal from this powerful enemy. The Fleet of Fog even went one step further and began destroying satellites preventing communication world-wide further isolating nations from each other.
We'll be following one ship from this Fleet of Fog. Resembling a Tribal-class destroyer by the name of "Haida"...
Haida came to from herself, shaking the spacey-ness from her mind. She was sailing back from attacking a secret military base deep in the Hudson's Bay. She could recall destroying the base smiling in memory of the fireball the base made when it went up. Once she got back, she'll contact the Admiralty Code to report her actions. She was now sailing just past the horizon of the shores of Labrador as she skirted the coastline just out of view. She directed her mental model below deck and settled in. Her sisters would chastise her for sleeping, but, considering the humans were decidedly incapable of matching them, she didn't think it would mater if she was asleep or awake and considered the possibility of actually fighting in her sleep. Nevertheless, she set her lower subroutines to keep watch and wake her of any "trouble", no matter how small. With the trifles taken care of she settled in and pulled the oversized sea cadet dress tunic up to bury herself in and promptly fell asleep.
She was dreaming. She knew this but didn't know why she was dreaming of standing in the military base she just destroyed. Only it wasn't so destroyed as she left it. Her mental model was standing in a room where two men were talking to each other. One man was standing in military fatigues while the other was sitting in a wheelchair, each leg removed above and below the knee respectively. Haida guessed he was one of the few survivors of the final human offensive. A veteran. The veteran was reading some papers, presumably given to him by the military man that was standing. Haida went over to read what the veteran was holding but the paper was blank to her. She grumbled at that, hating dreams at times for this very reason. The two men hadn't been stationary during this time as the veteran had finished reading the paper and looked up at the military man in disbelief.
"You're joking, this is what they came up with?"
The military man stared back in a smug nonplus, "It's the best plan we have for the timeframe we have. We'd like to use it to back-engineer it, but Intelligence believes if we take any longer, enemy reinforcements will come running. This is the only shot we got."
The veteran gave a dry-short laugh, "Se, instead of betting on something we know will work, they decided to bet everything on this cockamamie plan, huh?"
The military man just shrugged at that, "Do you want to see it?"
The veteran tossed the papers onto the nearby table and pushed himself towards the door, "May as well," he said nearly missing the military man's toes, forcing him to step back as he rolled through the door, following after him to eventually lead him on catching up. Haida trailed after the two. The duo lead Haida's mental model down a pair of elevators and security checkpoints, no one acknowledged her presence but she kept a weary eye regardless despite it being a dream. Eventually, they made their way to a large open room, made to hide the remains of humanity's navy. Haida was looking all over at the parked ships and cargo and munitions that she nearly bumped into the two she had been following. Looking ahead she stood fast, a chill going through her mental model. There, in one of the births, was herself. She was shocked!
"Not a bad platform for a trojan horse, huh?" the military man asked the veteran.
End Part 1
