By the time Kade finished speaking with Arizona, the rain had shifted from sheets to a steadier fall—still heavy, still cold, but no longer angry in the way it had been during the burial.

  That didn’t make the world feel lighter.

  It only made it feel like the sea was taking a breath before the next thing.

  Arizona met Kade in the command building first, not because she needed paperwork—Arizona could navigate paperwork better than half the junior officers Horizon had once suffered—but because Kade had insisted on speaking to her like a person before speaking to her like a battleship.

  He didn’t dress it up.

  He didn’t “request the asset.”

  He asked.

  Arizona sat in her wheelchair with her hands folded in her lap, posture controlled, expression mellow in the way people sometimes became when they had lived with grief so long it stopped being sharp and started being heavy. Her eyes were tired but attentive.

  Kade explained the mission in plain language.

  Strange phenomena in the Aleutians.

  Missing pings.

  Buoy arrays disappearing.

  Supply drones vanishing.

  Communications relays cutting out in patterns that didn’t match Abyssal interception doctrine.

  Something was moving up there—either a trap, or a deeper migration, or a pocket of the sea turning wrong.

  Arizona listened without interrupting.

  When Kade finished, there was a brief silence.

  Then Arizona’s voice—soft, semi-sad, steady—came out.

  “I can go,” she said.

  Kade watched her closely.

  Not assessing her combat ability. Not measuring her as hardware.

  Assessing whether she truly wanted to.

  Arizona nodded once, as if answering his unspoken question.

  “I want to,” she said quietly. “If it’s… important.”

  Kade exhaled slowly.

  “It is,” he said.

  Arizona’s eyes lowered for a moment.

  Then lifted again.

  “And if I can help morale,” she added softly, “then… good.”

  Kade’s jaw tightened.

  He knew that feeling.

  The need to matter even when you were broken.

  He nodded once.

  “Then you’re cleared,” he said. “We’ll keep it tight. Wisconsin escorts you. You don’t play hero.”

  Arizona’s mouth twitched faintly.

  “A commander telling me not to play hero,” she murmured. “That’s new.”

  Kade’s expression was flat.

  “Get used to it,” he replied.

  Arizona’s eyes softened.

  “…Yes, Commander.”

  It was quiet agreement.

  Not obedience.

  And Kade—satisfied—left her to prepare.

  Arizona’s shipform emerged at dawn.

  Even worn, even well-used, even scarred by history and neglect, it was still unmistakably a Pennsylvania-class super dreadnought.

  It didn’t glide into the water like a new hull.

  It settled into it like something ancient remembering how to float.

  The paint was weathered. The armor showed scars that had been patched and repatched. The lines of the ship carried weight—old steel, old doctrine, old war.

  It looked like a ship that had survived being treated as a trophy and then discarded.

  It looked like a ship that had endured.

  It looked like Arizona.

  Horizon’s dock crews moved carefully around her hull, lines securing, cranes checking, support craft circling like attentive fish.

  Wisconsin watched from his own berth, expression unreadable behind his armor.

  He didn’t say it out loud, but everyone could see it in the way his posture tightened:

  He was taking this personally.

  Not because Arizona needed his protection like a helpless thing.

  Because Wisconsin’s instincts demanded that if something touched her, it would regret existing.

  And then—another detail emerged that shifted the mood on the pier.

  Marines.

  Not a full platoon.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Not a formal detachment.

  But a small group moving with purpose up the gangway, carrying gear bags and rifles slung safely.

  Hensley’s men.

  The ones who’d been there at Resolute Shoals.

  The ones who had stood in court, who had dragged Fairplay home, who had fired the gun salute in the rain.

  Morales.

  Finch.

  Reeves.

  Carter.

  Doyle.

  They moved like men who understood they were walking onto something that mattered.

  Arizona watched them board from her position near the gangway in her wheelchair, her expression calm, but her eyes softened as each one saluted her—not because protocol demanded it, but because respect did.

  Morales, tall and solid, gave her a salute that was crisp enough to cut air.

  “Ma’am,” he said, voice rough but careful. “Heard you were heading north.”

  Arizona’s voice was gentle.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I am.”

  Finch—always the one with a hint of nervous humor—shifted his weight awkwardly.

  “We… uh,” he started, then cleared his throat. “We’re coming too. If that’s okay.”

  Arizona blinked once, surprised.

  Then her mouth softened into the faintest smile.

  “You don’t have to,” she said gently.

  Reeves—sharper, quieter, protective in that way Marines got when they had decided something was theirs to guard—snorted faintly.

  “Yes, we do,” he muttered under his breath.

  Carter elbowed him lightly, warning.

  Doyle, expression unreadable, simply nodded once.

  Arizona’s gaze moved over them, one by one.

  She seemed to understand something without them needing to explain it:

  They weren’t boarding because they thought she couldn’t handle herself.

  They were boarding because she mattered to them.

  And because if the sea tried to take her, they wanted to be close enough to spit in its face.

  Arizona’s voice softened further.

  “Then… thank you,” she said quietly.

  Morales’s jaw tightened.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and his tone made it sound like a vow.

  Wisconsin watched the exchange.

  He didn’t interrupt.

  He didn’t sneer at Marines on a battleship.

  He simply accepted it.

  Because Wisconsin understood protective instincts.

  He just expressed his through armor and guns.

  They expressed it through boots and rifles.

  Same impulse.

  Different tools.

  The departure briefing happened on the pier.

  Not a formal parade.

  Just Wisconsin and Arizona, standing—one literally, one seated—and a small cluster of crew, officers, and escort craft operators listening.

  Wisconsin’s voice was calm, disciplined.

  “We head north,” he said. “We keep speed to Arizona’s max sustainable. No reckless pushes. We don’t outrun the ship we’re protecting.”

  He didn’t say “asset.”

  He didn’t say “package.”

  He said “ship.”

  He said “we’re protecting.”

  That alone told the dock crews Horizon’s culture was rubbing off on him.

  Arizona’s voice came next, softer but steady.

  “It will be long,” she said. “At least six days.”

  Finch muttered, “Six—” then stopped when Carter shot him a look.

  Arizona continued, eyes calm.

  “Maybe more,” she added. “Weather. Enemy scouts. We may need to alter course.”

  Wisconsin nodded once.

  “We’ll run sonar sweeps,” he said. “We’ll keep air watch. If we see anything strange, we don’t chase it blindly. We report back. We survive first.”

  Arizona’s gaze lifted toward Wisconsin.

  Her voice was gentle.

  “You’re very… serious,” she observed.

  Wisconsin’s mouth twitched faintly.

  “I’m always serious,” he said.

  Reeves muttered under his breath, “Yeah, no shit.”

  Wisconsin’s eyes flicked toward him.

  Reeves stared right back.

  A beat of tension.

  Then Wisconsin turned away, ignoring it like a professional.

  Arizona’s smile softened.

  The Marines relaxed slightly.

  And then something else happened—something that wasn’t in any briefing.

  Iowa arrived.

  Not in shipform. In her rigging, skating across the harbor water with casual speed, like the ocean was her personal hallway.

  She came to a stop near Arizona’s gangway and stared up at her.

  For a second, Iowa’s usual messy, aggressive energy seemed to stall.

  Her posture shifted.

  She looked… younger.

  Not physically.

  In the way her expression softened.

  In the way her shoulders eased.

  In the way her eyes, for just a moment, carried something close to childlike reverence.

  “Arizona,” Iowa said.

  Her voice, normally rough and loud, was quieter.

  Arizona looked down at her.

  Her expression warmed.

  “Iowa,” she replied gently.

  Iowa swallowed, then suddenly stepped forward, almost awkward.

  “…You’re going out,” she said.

  Arizona nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Iowa’s jaw tightened.

  “…Be careful,” she muttered, like she hated saying it because it sounded like she cared.

  Arizona’s eyes softened even more.

  “I will,” she promised.

  Iowa hesitated, then did something that made a couple dock workers blink in surprise.

  She leaned down and rested her forehead briefly against Arizona’s shoulder—just a second, a small gesture, almost like a kid checking that someone was real.

  Then she pulled back quickly, cheeks faintly flushed.

  “Don’t—” Iowa started, then snapped, louder, “Don’t die, okay?!”

  Arizona’s mouth twitched.

  “I will try not to,” she said gently.

  Iowa huffed, looking away like she was furious at herself for showing emotion.

  Then she glanced at Wisconsin.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “If you let anything touch her,” Iowa said, voice sharpening, “I’ll peel your armor off.”

  Wisconsin’s gaze stayed calm.

  “I won’t,” he said.

  Iowa stared.

  Wisconsin stared back.

  Then Iowa snorted and turned away, skating off toward the docks again like she hadn’t just revealed a soft spot the size of a battleship.

  The Marines watched her go.

  Finch murmured, “She really is like a kid around her.”

  Morales didn’t smile, but his eyes softened.

  “Arizona’s got that effect,” he said quietly.

  Arizona pretended she hadn’t heard.

  But her expression stayed warm.

  When the fleet finally left Horizon’s harbor, it wasn’t large.

  It didn’t need to be.

  Wisconsin’s shipform moved ahead and slightly offset, a predator escorting a wounded elder.

  Arizona’s Pennsylvania-class hull followed, steady and patient, cutting the grey sea with a wake that looked like a line drawn by history.

  Escort craft peeled away once they cleared Horizon’s defense grid.

  Radio chatter shifted to operational tone.

  The rain followed them for the first hour, then softened into mist.

  And then, as Horizon shrank behind them, the world widened.

  Open ocean.

  Cold wind.

  Steel-grey horizon lines.

  The north waited.

  The Aleutians were far.

  Not because of distance alone.

  Because the Aleutians carried old weight.

  Old wreckfields.

  Old ghost stories.

  A place where fog often behaved wrong and sonar sometimes caught echoes it shouldn’t.

  A place where the sea felt… older.

  Arizona’s voice came over the internal channel later, calm and steady.

  “You know,” she said softly, “this isn’t the first time I’ve gone north.”

  Wisconsin’s response was quiet.

  “I know,” he said.

  Arizona’s tone carried something faint—melancholy, but not broken.

  “The sea feels different there,” she murmured. “Like… it remembers.”

  Wisconsin didn’t argue.

  He believed the sea remembered everything.

  He had lived long enough to know that water held grudges.

  He replied simply:

  “Then we’ll make sure it remembers we bite back.”

  Arizona’s mouth twitched faintly, almost amused.

  “That’s very Iowa-class of you,” she observed.

  Wisconsin’s voice was flat.

  “I learned from watching your people,” he said.

  Arizona was quiet for a moment.

  Then, gently:

  “Thank you for escorting me.”

  Wisconsin’s reply came quickly, like it wasn’t even a question.

  “Of course,” he said.

  A pause.

  Then, quieter:

  “You shouldn’t have to go alone.”

  Arizona’s eyes softened, though Wisconsin couldn’t see them through the channel.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  On her deck, the Marines were settling in—Morales checking gear, Carter coordinating watch rotations, Doyle scanning the horizon with binoculars, Reeves making sure no one did anything stupid, Finch muttering about how cold the north was going to be like complaining might ward off frostbite.

  Arizona listened to their presence around her ship like it was music.

  Not loud.

  Not dramatic.

  Just… there.

  And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like she was sailing as scrap to be used up.

  She felt like she was sailing as someone people wanted to keep.

  The voyage would be long.

  Six days, at least.

  Maybe more.

  There would be weather.

  Enemy scouts.

  Strange phenomena.

  The kind of northern sea that swallowed confidence whole.

  But Wisconsin was there, a steel wall with a heartbeat, ready to punish anything that dared.

  Arizona was there, a worn Pennsylvania still carrying the weight of her name.

  And behind them, far to the south, Horizon Atoll continued to breathe—repair berths humming, Worcester hull frame slowly taking shape for Fairplay, Kade returning to his desk, Tōkaidō keeping him fed, and the base refusing to forget the names carved into wet ground.

  Northbound.

  With a ghost at the bow.

  And enough stubbornness in the hulls to make the sea think twice.