-------------------------------------------- July, 1960 - Strait of Gibraltar -------------------------------------------- Captain Martín Fernández de Navarrete stood ramrod straight with his feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in his spotless black formal uniform festooned with gold braid. His peak cap sat at an ideally rakish angle, his pistol and sword held in place by a painstakingly polished white belt and cross belt. Below his feet he could feel the rumble of the ships engines as the 50,000 ton Héroe-Class Battleship, [i]RSN Don Quixote[/i], steamed into the Strait of Gibraltar. To the left, low and barren, lay Spanish Morocco. To the right lay Spain, green and lush. But, along that coast lay the greatest insult to Spanish pride, the British Fortress of Gibraltar. Navarrete longed to turn his ships 15 inch turrets against the rock but he had been expressly forbidden. He knew, as did his crew, that the British would be watching them as well, their own massive 10 inch guns more than enough to reach completely across the strait. The [i]Don Quixote[/i] might have the bigger guns but you couldn't sink The Rock. It didn't help that the British emplacements were nearly 1,300 feet above seal level and their gunners would have an unobstructed view of the Spanish Armada passing through. Instead, Navarrete would do what he had always, he would pretend the rock was not there, and the British would pretend that he wasn't pretending. It was a farce. Eventually Gibraltar would return to the Spanish. It was only a matter of time. Modern advances in warfare had made the once strategic location a death trap for its garrison. Navarrete privately hoped that it would not surrender peacefully so he could unleash his guns on the hated British. The Armada, the [i]Don Quixote[/i] and five escort ships, stayed true through the middle of the channel. Navarrete might not be able to fire on the British but he would be damned if he hugged the Moroccan coast like some child afraid of a bogey man. Merchant vessels scattered out of their way, the Spanish flag flying proudly from the stern of the big ship as they finally began their turn North to steam into Rota, the massive Naval base that had been built just thirty years ago when the Old King was alive. Navarette had to be honest with himself, he missed the old man. He might have been a tough screw to get money out of but when he did something, he threw his weight behind it. This son of his, a playboy without an ounce of idea how to rule. And the nobility, fat fools. He was the son of an olive merchant who had paid a considerable sum to send his only son to the Naval Academy back when the King had believed that anyone could command, noble blood be damned. Navarette had done his father proud and moved swiftly up the ranks under he saw the Senior Captain of the Spanish Armada, next in line for an Admiral's position. Next in line until the Royal Council, nobles all, had decreed that only a nobleman could hold Flag officer rank. Bastards, all of them. Nor was Navarette alone in his musings as he began to pace the steel deck of the outer bridge. A good number of military officers were the sons of middle class families who had flourished under the King. Now the complete lack of regard for their achievements by the Royal Council was stirring unrest and, in some cases anger. That anger was kept close to chests and only whispered about in dark corners but Navarette had not become a Post-Captain by being a fool. Change was coming. He only hoped it would not be to bloody. Various factions were at work within Spain and already he, along with many officers, had been discreetly approached by someone enquiring as to which way their political thinkings might be. Navarette had never truly been one for politics but he was worried about Spain. The country had grown wealthy and powerful over the past forty years. While other countries had fallen on hard times and waged world wars, or civil wars, Spain had kept her nose clean, more or less. Spain had quietly been involved in supporting the winning factions of both the German and American Civil Wars. "Quietly". Spanish Naval power had assisted the victorious forces of the Kaiser and Spanish "Volunteers", now known as the Condor Legion, had served with American forces against the southern states. Had they been a war winning help? Maybe? He doubted it. But he did know that Spain had learned much from their interactions about the new age of modern warfare. To this day, not more than a few hundred Spaniards had died in trench warfare, and for that he was thankful. Spain has been spared the horror of an entire generation wiped out and the economic disaster that followed. Selling to both sides in the Great War, and then to the various warring factions around the globe, had brought the Spanish great wealth, and valuable feedback on their weapons systems. The [i]Don Quixote[/i] and her sister ships, three in total, were the pinnacle of Spanish Naval engineering. Fast, powerful, heavily armed and armoured, they could stand toe to toe with any other ship of their class. This voyage, however, was to see a new type of warship. The Spanish had long been working an aircraft carrier of their own, eyeing the few the Americans had managed to build. None of them were very impressive but it was a start and if Spain were to regain her former glory, well, she would need to be able to deploy air power. He had heard that the latest vessel, yet unnamed, was nothing more than an old cruiser with its super structure torn down and replaced with a long flat deck from which only the lightest aircraft, in this case bi-plane torpedo bombers, could launch, but only it sailing directly into a ten knot head wind. It would be a tricky task and Navarette had been assigned to protect the vessel while it was undergoing sea trials. The thought of a plane launching from a ship was fascinating to him. His own vessel carried four seaplanes that could be lowered over the side before take off but to have planes that could simply take off and land at will! It was a fascinating idea. He halted his pacing, aware it was making his Deck Officer nervous, and glanced back to see Gibraltar slowly sinking in the distance. Some day soon, he promised himself, they would retake The Rock. "Deck Officer,"He snapped. "Flank speed. Get us to Rota in record time." "Aye aye sir!" Orders bellowed out but he was no longer listening. Beneath him he could feel the engines begin to increase in power and the ocean spray became more pronounced as the [i]Don Quixote[/i] started to slice through the waves. It was a good day to be Spanish.