Pearl Harbor shimmered under the midday sun. The ocean gleamed like steel. On the command balcony overlooking the harbor, Georgia stood alone, her coat crisp, arms crossed behind her back, eyes on the horizon.

  She'd been there all morning. Watching. Waiting.

  The fleet had already begun to move—Yorktown, Hornet, Lexington, and Saratoga leading a storm of shipgirls out to sea, waves parting beneath them in defiance of history. She'd made sure everything was aligned. That Halsey had the pn. That the theater would be ready.

  Now, it was time.

  The wind shifted. A shadow stretched across the deck.

  Georgia didn't turn. She didn't have to.

  The heavy footfalls behind her were unmistakable—confident, deliberate, impossible to ignore. And then—

  "Command said you'd be up here."

  Iowa's voice had a rhythm like rolling artillery. Confident, a bit cocky, like she knew the world would move when she did. The kind of power that could topple a country by itself.

  Georgia smiled faintly. "You're te."

  "I brought the weather with me." Iowa stepped beside her, sungsses tucked in her colr, rigging humming low. She scanned the harbor and let out a low whistle. "Damn. You've been busy."

  "I was the st heavy left on station," Georgia replied. "The girls needed leadership. So I gave it."

  "I saw the battle pn. Coral Sea's gonna be a knife fight. You sure this gamble's worth it?"

  Georgia turned at st, locking eyes with her Older Cousin, her equal in all but shell size. "The base is still trying to fix the mess after the attack, and Radar is pinging siren patrols every now and then. You'll be the one taking over and making it work now."

  Iowa stared at her, expression unreadable for a moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.

  "So this is a hand-off?"

  "You're faster. Louder. More visible. And I'm spent." Georgia let out a breath. "The moment the others receive contact from the Coral Sea, I'm sailing to reinforce them. But the base? The command presence? That's yours now."

  Iowa stepped closer, extending her hand. "I'll keep it warm."

  Georgia gripped it, firm and steady. "Don't keep it quiet."

  The handshake lingered a moment longer, two legends acknowledging the passing of the torch—not out of obligation, but out of mutual respect. Then Georgia turned away, her silhouette already moving with purpose, wind catching her coat like a battle fg.

  Iowa stayed behind, hands on her hips, watching her cousin descend the stairwell.

  "Hell of a setup you left me," she muttered, then smirked. "Let's see if I can make some noise."

  She turned to the harbor below, eyes narrowing at the horizon.

  Pearl had a new guardian now. And her cannons were hungry.

  ======

  Pearl Harbor – Command Operations Center

  There was a rather old ship girl not letting your height fool you, and one could tell she out aged most of the command with the dressing down she was giving them.

  "For the st time," the destroyer snapped, smming a report folder onto the desk so hard the papers inside jolted. "I fired. I hit. I sank the damn thing."

  USS Ward, Wickes-css destroyer, was infuriated, her rigging cnking with restrained energy… Or it just might have been age. Her uniform was crisp, her tone anything but.

  Across the room, a pair of human officers exchanged uneasy gnces, while a communications rating quietly tried to make herself invisible behind her console.

  "Ward," the duty officer said slowly, "you're telling me you fired on and sank an enemy submarine—before the first bombs fell?"

  "That's exactly what I'm telling you," Ward growled. "Periscope spotted off the harbor entrance. We engaged. Depth charges followed. Oil slick. Debris. Confirmed kill. And you ignored it. Let the whole harbor get caught with their pants down."

  The officer cleared his throat. "Command's still verifying details—"

  “You don't verify a blown-open sub hull resting in the water! You confirm it! You award the kill and maybe, just maybe, this base learns how to take a shipgirl's word as gospel! I FUCKING SENT A GODDAMN WARNING!"

  The room went still.

  Then, from the rear of the command floor, a new voice spoke.

  "Let me see that report."

  Ward froze. Turned.

  She was looking at a girl who, without a doubt,t was easily 1 maybe 2 decades younger than her yet she was outranked… Again, then again it made sense this girl was massive, she well outsized USS Vermont BB-20.

  Iowa stepped forward, crisp and calm. No one missed how the brass and the entire ops room suddenly stood straighter.

  Ward squinted at her. "You're not in command yet."

  "No," Iowa agreed, casually slipping her gloves off. "But I will be. Georgia handed me the keys not ten minutes ago."

  She took the report from the stunned officer's hands, scanning it quickly. "Visual confirmation. Engagement logged. You hit it with a shell? Was it surfaced? Hmm, the Logs are Time-stamped." She closed the folder with a snap. "You!" Iowa states looking at a communications enlisted.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Get me the radio logs for the time 0640," Iowa states

  The girl scrambled, nearly knocking over her chair as she dove for the logbooks. "Yes, ma'am! Right away!"

  Ward remained still, jaw clenched, watching Iowa like she didn't quite know what to make of her yet. The others in the room, however, were already reacting. The tension had shifted—no longer a powder keg waiting to blow, but something more focused. Directed.

  The comms tech flipped pages fast, then froze.

  "Found it, ma'am. Incoming report from Ward, timestamped 0640. Message reads—uh—'Enemy submarine sighted, engaging. Immediate threat to harbor.' Followed by secondary transmission confirming firing solution and—" She swallowed. "—explosion. Oil slick. Debris field."

  Iowa nodded slowly. "You warned them. They had it. And they sat on it."

  Ward muttered under her breath, "Sat on it while we bled."

  The entire room remained silent for several minutes as everyone began to realize that whoever was on duty was going to be going to Mast and might even catch a court-martial soon.

  "Looks like you did exactly what you said," Iowa states slowly

  Ward crossed her arms, jaw tight. "Damn right I did."

  Iowa gave her a long, appraising look. "You saved lives, Ward. You called it right. And nobody listened."

  Ward's fists unclenched slowly. "So now what?"

  "Now?" Iowa smiled, all steel and heat. "You're getting your kill, your commendation, and you're staying on station."

  Ward blinked, clearly caught off guard. "You're not transferring me?"

  Iowa shook her head. "Hell no. You've been here since the first shot. You earned this harbor. There's not a shipgirl in the fleet I'd trust more to keep the lights on and the sharks out while the rest of us are off swinging punches."

  The old destroyer straightened, her posture settling into something firmer, something earned. "I thought they were going to sideline me. Call me 'unstable' or 'obsolete.' Push me out."

  "Let them try," Iowa said, turning so the whole ops room could hear her again. "Because I'll say this once and I'll say it loud—Ward has the first confirmed kill of this war! I'll see what I can do for a Presidential Unit Commendation."

  A murmur rippled through the command center, heads nodding. A few even cpped, quietly but sincerely.

  Ward, ever the destroyer, tried not to let it show, but the slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed the surge of pride and relief under the steel.

  "Then I guess I'll keep the watch," she said simply.

  Commonnerfer