The new Addition - Part Two
The Brotherhoods planetary envoy approached and bowed politely at, she noted, the perfect angle. He was flanked on either side by two huge but simply dressed Monk bodyguards wearing plain robes and, in a nice touch, wearing traditional Fukunigasa full head bamboo hats and carrying what appeared to be ceremonial staffs.
The envoy himself - Miyaka Akaso was slim and somewhere in his early to late middle age with a calm aura and a tendency not to react visually to anything. Sumiko bowed back just as respectfully,
"Miyaka san, I am pleased you could join us for this celebration"
"My pleasure. It certainly has bought the locals out in force. Perhaps I can be permitted to bless the new warship in the name of the true one before launch?"
"I am sure that would be auspicious, please do so"
He gestured with his hand a young shaved monk ran up with a small rectangle of cloth, " this has also been blessed in the name of the true one and is my gift to the ship. Brotherhood warships usually carry flags of sacred text that are stored in a central shrine and we would like the ship to have one similar"
Taking it respectfully," that is most appreciated. I am sure the crew would find it most edifying to have such a physical reminder on board"
He bowed again before pausing to look at the scene in front of them, " this is certainly a very colourful scene. Why the difference in flags though? "
Sumiko looked over the vista herself with a fresh eye. The new warship had several huge vertical standards in light blue with red text and a circle surrounding a number written in silver whereas elsewhere were many more similarly sized standards in yellow with red text and at the top another circle surrounding a number in black text.
"Well, our navy traditionally uses as many visual clues to indicate structure and organisation as they possibly can. The standards represent various present warships of the fleet. Since this is the 3rd Fleet the ship names Kanji is always written in red covering the majority of the standard with the colour matching the fleet name of the 'Chi No Keibi'. The top circled number though shows the squadron. This new ship is the 6th ship of the 3rd squadron, which is the newly forming 'Seiken', whose colours are silver on blue much like my house colours. The yellow standards are for ships from the 2nd squadron - the 'Hachi' who are also part of the 3rd fleet thus the same red ship names but with squadron colours of black on yellow. This colour scheme is also programmed into the battle control systems on board so the crew can instantly get an idea of where a ship is from without having to read or switch filters. That leaves actual text for more relevant data than , say, the name or unit."
"Still a fleet is a powerful thing"
Sumiko looked over to ascertain the veracity of the comment and decided it was honestly meant," well there are fleets and there are Fleets. The 3rd is really a fleet in name only it only has four squadrons with the fourth being designated transports and of the three fighting squadrons the Akuma essentially work individually as scouts or potentially solitary freighter interdiction leaving just two true combat squadrons and even with these the Hachi are essentially just intended to deal with solitary pirates. They would be heavily outclassed and unlikely to last in any combat with any Affiliations with a designated military. This has unfortunately caused trouble amongst the military itself with a few weeks back some inter-squadron rivalry led to a crew member from the Akuma calling the Hachi the 'popcorn' squadron leading to a fight"
popcorn squadron?"
"Yes, the idea being if you apply any 'heat' to them at all then they start exploding all over the place. The Hachi were apparently not impressed... On the other hand the Seiken squadron could just about stand in a 'line of battle' without making much impact as they are so small compared to the big affiliations ships but we have hardly any built. So for me 'fleet' is more an administrative concept than a military one. We are not that sort of affiliation really. We cut our cloth according to our means and essentially our means are pirate defence and possibly trade interdiction."
Akaso nodded politely and changed the topic," and how about those unusually dressed women?". In the distance two large enclosures liberally decorated with flags contained several 'unusually' costumed people.
Sumiko laughed, "those enclosures are where the relevant squadrons are recruiting.", The Saints appeared to be using attractive young (mainly) women in a state of almost undress to get enthusiastic locals to sign up to the navy, over in the Hornet Squadrons area they appeared to be holding various throwing competitions - she could see darts,spears,shot puts and basketballs, " you are lucky the 'Devils' are not recruiting - they have sent only one ship as witness today, where is it, oh yes the Ookami over there"
She pointed at a Broadsword hanging almost sullenly on the outskirts, " Their recruitment costumes were even more risqué and probably over-reached the bounds of decency. How does your navy recruit?"
"We don't tend to have difficulties and we also like to specialise", he indicated to his bodyguard/Monk escorts," as a practical example my companions are amongst our elite ground 'Zealots' and though obviously currently unarmoured are very adept at close combat. Those staffs look innocuous but also possess both a laser cutting edge capability plus can send several full beam shots up to two miles using a hidden power pack - if required."
At this Sumiko noticed the faces of her own Bodyguard twitch ever so slightly, "The True one does move in mysterious ways."
"Indeed, especially when those mysterious ways involve powerful weapons that look like simple staffs. I find an over armoured and weaponed bodyguard speaks of fear and an attempt to overawe with authority. Confident power is more subtle than that. Less 'look at me' than 'nothing to see here..perhaps' "
Sumiko laughed," if that is the case then how is the missionizing going within the Kastorian planets?"
"I do admit out escorts there carry specifically designed weapons that are so light they can made to look visually enormous. Nothing impresses a Kastorian more than someone whose hand gun appears three times as large as their own. The exception proving the rule perhaps. "
Laughing gently Sumiko gave a slight hand signal using the House language to summon some refreshments as the naming ceremony continued.
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