My wife and I stepped out of my car, surrounded by half a dozen Spetzanz operators decked out in all their gear. Veria was giddy with excitement as I selected the area for the ship. The blue circle hovered in the sky, the ship slowly materializing below. Its massive size dominating the wharf.
At least most of the ship was hidden behind stacks of containers. Unlikely I'd gotten away with the summoning… thousands of people had noticed that last fleet expansion. That circle had been massive.
'Quest Complete! System development. Discover a subsystem of the system. Reward, access to the discovered subsystem.'
'System subsystem discovered! Prototyping. New equipment or weapons built/modernized by the user will be added to the system shop for purchase.'
'Modernized ship detected, Minsk class aviation cruiser. Adding to the shop, please see the shop for more details!'
"It's so cute!" Veria practically squealed as she pointed up at the ship. I gave my wife an odd look. The hell did she think the ship was cute? I thought pretty much all soviet ships looked weird at best.
"Sure thing Darling, what did you say you wanted to name it again?" I asked while Veria pranced about the car like an excited little girl.
"Querido amor… Darling Love." she smiled brightly.
I felt a slight pang in my chest as I forced a smile to my face. What kind of name for a ship was that? I repressed a sigh as my wife happily waved at some sailors lining the deck of the ship.
I glanced over at the nearby lieutenant and gestured for him to come over. "Would you mind finding a boat to take us out to the ship?"
Half an hour later Veria and I were being piped aboard the carrier. A wizened old captain greeted me with a hearty salute after I'd boarded. "Comrade commander, it is a pleasure to meet you, I hope you'll find great use for us."
"I hope so as well captain, shortly i'll have my chief of staff brief your officers before officially transferring the ship to the fleet's command. Also… I've allowed my wife the privilege of naming the ship, I hope you won't mind."
"It is no problem at all, Comrade Commander, it would be an honor…"
"In that case, congratulations captain, I hope you will continue to captain the Querido amor." the captain paused, giving me a long look.
"Was that Italian Sir?" ah… I'd forgotten that almost everyone that was summoned only spoke russian.
"Spanish… it translates as Darling love…" I explained.
"That is most certainly a name sir… we'll try to live you to your wife's high expectations for us." the captain replied after a few long moments.
"Ah yes, before I forget… when you go through in-processing at headquarters please have a name for yourself if you don't already have one… the staff in the in-processing department has a penchant for naming those that can't provide a chosen name quickly enough with Ivan Smithovich." I warned the captain as we started walking towards the hangar.
"I'll brief the crew sir… perhaps I could show you the impressive airgroup of the… Querido amor…" the captain led us onto the hangar deck. A dozen migs 23s in a striking dark blue and white pattern were crammed towards the front of the hangar.
"Naval versions of the Mig-23. It is unfortunate that our catapult is incompatible with the Su-33… however we won't let that hinder us sir." the captain rumbled, or was he laughing? I nodded, I was somewhat familiar with the Mig-23ML… and the considerable number of them being shot down whenever we wandered across a random F-35 that Black horse had 'liberated' from the Edwards airforce base.
I was more interested in the half dozen or so large squat bomber looking things taking up most of the middle of the hangar between the Migs and KA-27s.
"Ah, interested in our strike bombers sir? The Ko-45, purpose designed for the soviet navy." the captain boasted.
"What are those?" Veria asked, reappearing beside me and intertwining her fingers with mine.
"Naval strike fighters… the captain was just explaining to me…"
The crew seemed to be looking over most of the aircraft. The aircraft seemed promising… but.. Eh… I'll find out if they're good or not based on how many I need to replace due to combat losses. Maybe I should just go out of my way to start modernizing the military… a lot of losses were due to the 'old' equipment everyone was making due with.
We made our way up to the flight deck, a few helicopters were parked to the stern as we were given a tour of the ship's main armament, her four twin P-500 launchers. The captain gushed over the missiles while Veria and I nodded politely… all this was flying over Veria's head and I was rather familiar with the missiles… They were the same as those aboard the Slava.
We glossed over the lesser missile and gun systems, the captain seemed rather intent on treating his aviation cruiser more like a cruiser than a carrier, even given her vastly improved carrier complement over the Stalingrad… actually, I needed to get some more Yak-38s to replace combat losses…
I wondered briefly if I should just do a full equipment replacement. I'll bring it up with Ivanov tomorrow, probably have to get Thomas, Luka, then Joseph… maybe get our artillery, logistics commanders together… probably… no, i'd gotten the most up to date air defense equipment i could when i got those air defense brigades… eh… that's a later problem…
My wife tugged on my sleeve. "I wanna draw one of those pictures that go on the plane."
"Sure thing Darling…" I said with a small smile. She beamed with happiness. She's so lucky I loved her. We returned home, for once I made dinner, spaghetti and meatballs while my wife sketched and colored.
She produced a sketch as I gave her her plate. A yellowish pink rose. I smiled and planted a small kiss on her forehead. "I'll show this to Thomas tomorrow, let's see who wants to take this design…