All under the authority of one man. A man who even now stood amidst the leading vessel's forecastle, full beard billowing in the sea breezes that disrupted the water below. His face was gaunt with the ruddiness one would expect from a former life of farming, with a physique to match. Beneath two bushy brows laid a pair of cobalt eyes glittering with thoughts about the horizon that consisted of nothing but a similar color. The squadron had left port a few days ago, but nothing resembling land had been sighted in the time between starting their patrol and the present. It was concerning. According to the navigator, their bearing should have brought them to the airspace of the allied micronation of New Argenteen a few hours ago for resupply, but of course no such rendezvous had occurred in the absence of the country itself.
Colonel Fuller Austin's expression quickly soured as he continued to dedicate his attention to the emotionless blue expanse. This really was unacceptable; the first thing he'd learned as a leader was to 'never let the beer stop flowing'. With shortages of all sorts of commodities all around, that became the case more often than not, but a dearth of even the basic needs of life would doubtlessly go over rather poorly with the crew. At that thought, his gaze involuntarily shifted to a nearby midshipman instructing a duo of soldiers on how to do something or another. Austin winced as the two snapped clumsy salutes and turned on their respective heels to walk away, leaving a fairly visible mark on the floor. For all their prowess as shock troopers the Nomads made objectively tick poor sailors. On coming aboard they knew nothing of proper procedure or even how to store their cream brown armor and fatigues in the tight spaces. Austin found the only thing they could do without someone holding their hand was fight, but in that the Nomad brigades easily took the upper hand over their counterparts in the Free Navy's own Marine regiments.
"Sir." The colonel glanced around for the source of the voice before settling on the midshipman from earlier, somehow out of breath. His white shirt was damp with the sweat one would typically output after a period of heavy exertion.
"Something the matter?" He looked down at the junior officer, waiting for the younger to catch his breath.
After recollecting himself, the red-faced (...boy? Difficult to tell.) continued. "The Nav'y, he says we got sumthin! Mite of a little skirmish a few hundred to the east."
Austin's interest was piqued. "In yonder ocean?" He hadn't rained on a seafaring ship's parade on far too long.
But the midshipman shook his head, long sandy blonde hair twisting like a fine mob about his head.
"No, some town called, uh, 'Aeherhope' or some other. Some kind of owl thing, he said."
He looked up at the sky for a handful of moments before adding,
"Oh, and he says we're off course by aboooout four hundred miles."
The chance of a fight temporarily overrode Austin's anger with the miscalculation. It took him a grand total of ten seconds to come up with a response.
"Tell 'im to set a course, aye?"
"Aye!" The midshipman sped off again into the bowels of the Hastati on another marathon to the Guidance & Systems room.
The colonel, for his part, was ambivalent about the situation as the heaving vessel shoved to and was mirrored by its compatriots in the patrol group. The supply issue would have to be rectified in the next week, but the Strigiforme weren't supposed to even be out here. Even less so on a mission of violence. It was the perfect excuse to take out a few of the bastards while staying 'on course', and if anyone got in the way...well, he'd just have to kill them too. The officer swung around on the deck, cape momentarily fluttering up as he did so, and left to relay orders to the Nomad companies at his disposal.
OOC: Ausralians coming to screw everyone up prepare your anuns
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