Captain Hamilton T. Sheridan, RN
HMS Hasty, South of Java
International Waters, Indian Ocean
Sunday 25th July 2021, 1200hrs Local Time
Captain Hamilton T. Sheridan, Royal Navy, was feeling more than a little self-satisfied as his command sailed at the head of a mixed group of Royal Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy frigates as part of a joint Apilonian-Cottish Task Force that was sailing into the Indian Ocean as part of Exercise SOUTHERN WARRIOR. Their objective in this particular exercise was to test the response of main battle force of the Royal Navy’s Eastern Fleet, currently the Prince of Cascadia carrier strike group, to resist a major incursion from any of the nation-states in Oceania or Southeast Asia. The joint task force had been put together to present a realistic threat from the region; a carrier strike group reinforced by additional escorts, and as such whilst fairly well-matched from an offensive perspective would provide a significant challenge for the Prince of Cascadia to take the initiative against (which was the whole point of the exercise). All of the ships involved, including both the Apilonian carrier strike group and the ships attached to the Cottish task force, had been drawn from Flag Officer, Indian Ocean, the larger of the two subordinate commands of the Eastern Fleet, with the exception of HMNZS Wellington.
The New Zealand frigate had been included in the long-planned exercise following New Zealand joining the Apilonian Commonwealth (and restoring its monarchy) after the contentious few months at the beginning of the year, in which right-wing radical republican elements within New Zealand had (violently) expressed their opposition to such a move. It was a move that was intended to emphasise New Zealand as an equal partner within the Commonwealth, and to reassure Apilonia’s key international partners of it’s place at the head of the Commonwealth (as Apilonian foreign policy tended to be the leading approach, under the Common Foreign Policy agreement). All things considered, the Wellington had slotted into events quite nicely, having exercised with the Apilonian ships before all four had joined the Cottish task force for SOUTHERN WARRIOR. In the days that passed since they had all linked up, Sheridan had led the group through a series of evolutions that had allowed them to gel and operate as a slick unit, and put the best possible image of the Royal Navy across to one of the Kingdom’s closest and most important international partners. This was particularly important in this part of the world, given that the Royal Navy saw the Pacific (and to a lesser extent the Indian Ocean) as its ‘backyard’.
Moreover, in addition to the slick manoeuvring of the Apilonian escorts, Sheridan was also satisfied that his ship was well-turned out as a matter of pride.
His Majesty’s Ship Hasty was a ship of the Type-45 Vigilant-Class of guided missile destroyer, which the Royal Navy had taken great efforts during its development to position as one the world’s leading air defence warfare destroyers. After a frankly tortured half century of air warfare destroyer development, as technology advanced at a fast and furious pace, the modern Type-45 was the outcome of all that pain. None of the previous Apilonian destroyers had been bad but they had not been world-beating in the same way as the Type-45 been designed. The Vigilant-Class was equipped with the most advanced sensors, combat management system, and 96 vertical-launch system cells, providing her with a formidable missile load of around 200 in a balanced load out, including the formidable Sea Meteor, the shield of the Fleet.. However, learning from previous designs, effort had been made to provide at least some additional capabilities in other areas, including organic ASW and ASuW capability, which had allowed the class to be operated fairly flexibility, even if the bulk of the ships operated as the backbone of the escort for the Royal Navy’s carrier strike and amphibious warfare groups.
In SOUTHERN WARRIOR, the role of Hasty, Wellington, and the two frigates Calgary and Toronto, was a combination of reinforcing the protective element around the Cottish Carrier, to continue to build and develop the experience between the Royal Navy and the Royal Cottish Navy in integrating their ships in each other’s formations, and as an independent element at the direction of the Cottish flag officer. The joint task force aspect of the exercise was just as important as the opportunity to pit two carrier strike groups against each others, and was something both Admiralties had been eager to encourage anytime the RN and the RCN got the opportunity to exercise together. It was assumed that a time would come when the two fleet’s would operate alongside each other in a war situation, and not a limited conflict against a lesser power, but a full-on honest-to-good war against a peer or near-pear adversary.
Indeed, preparing for the next full-scale war was a regular subject of the Royal Apilonian Naval War College at Royal Roads, in the Duchy of New Caledonia. Sheridan had twelve months at the War College, completing a Masters Degree, prior to his current assignment. Study at the Naval War College, along with multi-ship command experience, were two of the main prerequisites to be considered for promotion to the rank of Commodore; and there were few such posts in the Royal Navy. As such, the main source of such experience was either at the Commander level, commanding squadrons of smaller ships such as patrol vessels or mine hunters, or at the Captain level, serving as the senior officer afloat for a group of escorts on independent assignment within a Fleet or regional sub-command. In Sheridan’s case it was the latter, serving as the senior officer afloat for the detached escorts of Flag Officer, Indian Ocean within the Eastern Fleet. Sheridan was eligible for promotion to Commodore within the next year, so a successful SOUTHERN WARRIOR would be a significant advantage with the Promotions Board.
As such, Sheridan was determined that both his own ship, and those others under his command, would give a good-showing.
Senior Special Agent Sabrina Ravenswood, RBI
MS Nautica, East of Timor
International Waters, Timor Sea
Sunday 25th July 2021, 1300hrs Local Time
Sabrina Ravenswood, Special Agent with the Royal Bureau of Investigation, had always loved the sea; hardly surprising when her family had a connection to the historic Gold Star Line, Apilonia’s last shipping line that routinely ran transatlantic and transpacific crossing rather than only operating mere cruises. There had been a time, earlier in her life, when she had seriously considered a career in the Royal Navy, indeed during her studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, she had spent time in the University Royal Naval Unit (URNU), a reserve component that served the dual role of preparing prospective naval officers for appointment to the Royal Naval Academy and in exposing ‘future leaders and prominent citizens’ to the navy with the implicit aim of encouraging a positive view of the service. As such, she took every possible opportunity to be by the sea, and was by far the most active user of her family’s 45-foot sailing yacht, Raven. She had even taken the time to travel to her most recent duty assignment aboard RMS Majestic, one of Gold Star Line’s prestigious ocean liners, rather than simply flying down at the last minute like the rest of her team.
As such, when her boss, Supervisory Special Agent Wallace Bradford, had requested someone to babysit a fundraising event aboard MS Nautica, it had surprised absolutely no one that Ravenswood had been the first to volunteer.
Ravenswood and the joint Bureau, Royal Security Service, and Royal Intelligence Service team had been sent to New Zealand back in February, to assist the New Zealand Police (or Royal New Zealand Police as it was now known) in their investigation of a significant domestic extremism threat during the referendum on New Zealand’s application to join the Apilonian Commonwealth and to restore the New Zealand Monarchy. Although events had rapidly escalated, with several mass casualty attacks in the run up to referendum day, the presence of the Apilonian team had undoubtedly saved hundreds if not thousands of lives in additional attacks. They had all been shocked to their core when, after the referendum had gone decisively in favour of both Commonwealth membership and restoring the New Zealand monarchy, the far right of the New Zealand National Party (which had opposed both) launched an attack on the New Zealand Parliament. The attack had been repulsed, and New Zealand had joined the Commonwealth at the same time as the King of Apilonia also became the King of New Zealand in a separate capacity, but there remained a very real domestic terrorism thread in New Zealand, as radical republican groups had made entirely clear that they would continue to fight.
The entire Nautica cruise was part of a fundraiser spearheaded by the Duke of California, one of the most wealthy noblemen in the Kingdom, for the Referendum Attacks Victims Fund. The great and the good had flocked from across the Kingdom, and indeed the world, for the all-expenses paid for trip during which, it was subtly expected, they would make a generous donation to the fund which was dedicated to supporting the hundreds of families who had lost a loved one during the attacks. Although there had been no intelligence that there was any sort of attack planned for the cruise, and security was tight in any event, Supervisory Special Agent Bradford had been eager to hedge his bets and implanting a Crown Agent aboard the ship could prove decisive in preventing a lone wolf attack, which was seen as the most likely threat. Therefore, Ravenswood was technically on-duty for the duration (and would therefore not be indulging in excessive alcohol), but given that she was supposed to be keeping a low profile and her presence was only known to (and with the consent of) the ship’s Cottish master she had been able to broadly relax since they had left Wellington.
Unfortunately, fate had other ideas.
It was early in a glorious afternoon, despite the season, when all hell broke loose. The first indication that anything was wrong to most was when the ship suddenly veered to starboard, without warning and really quite sharply for a ship of its size. Although the turn was quickly stopped and put back on course, and most of the passengers gave it no further thought despite some grumbling, Ravenswood had a bad feeling that something more was amiss. After all, they were in the middle of the ocean and there were no other ships around, so what on Earth would have caused the professional seamen and officers of the Cottish merchant fleet to conduct such a radical manoeuvre without warning and, perhaps more interestingly, without any sort of apology piped over the ship’s intercom. Suddenly, Ravenswood felt more than a little vulnerable without her sidearm, a Sig Sauer P229 chambered with .357 SIG, which was safely in a lockbox in her cabin. Standing from her table, watching the latest event of the fundraiser, Ravenswood quickly but quietly began to make her way towards the exit to go and retrieve it; hoping that she was overreacting but more than prepared to be proven painfully correct.
No sooner had she reached one of the smaller doors out of the Grand Dining Room did she hear a commotion from the direction of the main entrance. Tucking herself out of sight behind the smaller door, Ravenswood watched in horror as her worst nightmare for this assignment came true. A group of armed men stormed into the Grand Dining Room, all armed with either assault rifles or sub-machine guns all common on the blanket market, and began shouting orders for everyone to get down and not move.
“This ship has been seized in the name of People by the National Front of New Zealand!” The apparent leader of the group, sporting expensive looking Aviator sunglasses despite being in side. “Stay down and you will not be harmed, if the traitors in Wellington comply with our demands!”
Aviators’ warning apparently fell on deaf ears as one of the dignitaries, one of the Cottish as far as Ravenswood could tell, made a grab for the weapon of the nearest terrorist and struggled with the man briefly before Aviators pulled out his own sidearm and shot the man in the back of the head before his actions could inspire further resistance.
“Anyone else want to be a hero?” Aviators growled looking around at the group.
Ravenswood grimaced; she absolutely had to get her weapon.
It was a bad situation across the board; she had no idea how many terrorists were aboard and even if the dozen or so here made up the majority there was simply no way that she could take them all out alone. It stood to reason that there had to be more aboard as well; there had to be at least a few in control of the bridge, and probably more. As she hurried through the passageways of the ship, doing her best to look more like a frightened passenger than a Crown Agent in case she bumped into more terrorists, Ravenswood could not help but wonder how this situation had happened. As far as she was aware, and she had made a point of ensuring that she kept situation awareness throughout the journey, there had been no other vessels nearby so it seemed likely that these terrorists had been aboard since they had left Wellington. Exactly how they had gotten onboard, with enough weaponry to arm a small country, would be a priority question that needed to be answered, but for the moment her priority was to get a hand on her weapon.
Reaching her cabin, and locking the door behind her just in case, she immediately reached into the safe in the wardrobe, opened it and then unlocked the small case in which her sidearm was secured. Shoving the weapon down the back of her trousers, knowing that she might need to pretend not to be armed if she came across a terrorist in the passageways so a holster was out of the question, she put the additional magazines in her pockets, followed by her RBI badge and credentials. Taking a deep breath, she considered how to proceed. They were out of mobile phone signal of course, however she did have one advantage that the terrorists had likely not planned for when they secured the ship. Reaching back into the safe, Ravenswood pulled out a satellite phone and dialled the number she had been given for emergencies.
“This is Stowaway,” She said simply, using the (uninventive) codename she had been given for the duration. “Nautica has fallen.”
After receiving confirmation from the operator, Ravenswood sighed and leant briefly against the bulkhead. As a result of her message, the Bureau would communicate news of the hijacking (if the crew had not been able to do so themselves) quickly to both the Apilonian and Cottish admiralties, allowing them to respond to the situation. Nevertheless, it would take them some time to get here and even if they did it would be a nightmare to retake the ship, particularly if the terrorists were halfway capable. Given that they had been able to take over the ship it heavily suggested that they were, and if their execution of the Cottish man in the Grand Dining Room was anything to go by they were certainly ruthless. In short, it was going to be a long, long, day for all involved.
