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| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | Admiral Fallon makes a report from Pandaria and accidentally picks a fight. It was definitely totally accidental. Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth regrets her job. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
To: Grand Admiral Jes-Tereth
From: Adm. Siamus Fallon
CC: Adm. Rogers, Adm. Cantlebree, Adm. Taylor
Date: 1 Oct. 29
I have taken the liberty of assaying the coastline of Pandaria for a suitable landing for the anticipated Alliance fleet. My findings follow.
From our location south of Paw’Don Village:
To the west of our present mooring is a river delta that empties into the brackish end of the harbor where the Horde wrecks lie grounded on the mud flats. Beyond the delta and flats is a rocky promontory, and almost immediately beyond the southern tip of it, the bottom drops away and sailing is clear for just over a mile. NbyW again up the other side of the promontory is a broad cove with a sandy shore. On first look it has the makings of a generous anchorage for a fleet, but the approach is deceptive: at the cove’s easternmost end, the shelf comes abruptly to sand seabed at a quarter less ten fathoms, then leaps again to seven, then shoals abruptly a good cable-length from shore. Closer to the center the cove makes a fine location if vessels mind their soundings on entrance, but will not likely accommodate more than a dozen.
There is a second sandy cove west of that, but it shoals so steeply and so far out that a landing party could wade to shore from better than two and a half cables, with no bottom for anchorage before that. I sent two scouting parties in shore boats to take soundings along the shelf even farther west, and they report the seabed drops away again into a trench beyond the cove, but it appears inaccessible by ship from the open sea, hemmed as it is by shallows (and, in one spot, a massive stone monolith).
Captain Beron Foyle of the Swift sailed meanwhile east from our present mooring to make survey in that direction. Immediately to our east the harbor sprouts a number of stony monoliths. The tallest of these stands perhaps five mast-lengths higher than the Swift, and the shortest comes above her rail. That is, the shortest that breaks the surface; there are further such menhirs sprung randomly along the seabed, treacherous during flow tide, as well as a number of stony shoals.
The muddy cove directly to our east does not appear fit for anything but wrecking aground, as Admiral Taylor can attest.
There is a low ledge of grassy shore east of that which is inaccessible by ship due to, again, stone shoals. I do not think any vessel with a draft deeper than the Swift could make any kind of approach, and Captain Foyle reports that he risked his hull twice and on one of those occasions was obliged to warp his ship out to get her off the bottom.
Beyond that, on a minor river delta that lets out SbyE of the jinyu village, is a low, grassy shore that makes a suitable landing if one can navigate the monoliths just offshore, but it will not accommodate anything like a full fleet of ships; Captain Foyle estimates no more than four.
The coast thereafter turns NNW and is entirely impossible for landing. Any place the Swift was not obliged to stand well out to sea in order to avoid the increasing number and size of the monoliths, what shore she could venture toward was entirely rocky cliff.
My recommendation, therefore, is that in advance of the fleet’s arrival we should send in work crews via airship and/or recruit local laborers to dredge the first-mentioned location, west of Paw’Don, in order to carve out the eastern shoals and broaden the place for a harbor.
I don’t suppose you have any updates for us on when we can expect said arrival?
To: Adm. Fallon
From: Adm. Rogers
Cc: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Cantlebree, Adm. Taylor
Date: 10/1/29
Even I have to say that was pretty low, Fallon.
To: Adm. Rogers
From: Adm. Fallon
CC: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Cantlebree, Adm. Taylor
Date: 1 Oct. 29
In no way did I suggest that he did it on purpose. Adm. Taylor is a perfectly competent seaman.
To: Adm. Fallon
From: Adm. Taylor
Cc: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Cantlebree, Adm. Rogers
10/1/29
I was actively under Horde fire at the time and my foremast had gone by the board.
To: Adm. Taylor
From: Adm. Fallon
CC: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Cantlebree, Adm. Rogers
Date: 1 Oct. 29
I did not suggest that you did it on purpose. I concede your circumstances were challenging.
To: Adm. Fallon
From: Adm. Cantlebree
CC: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Rogers, Adm. Taylor
Date: 10/1/29
You did kind of imply it, though.
To: Adm. Cantlebree
From: Adm. Fallon
CC: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Rogers, Adm. Taylor
Date: 1 Oct. 29
If I did so, it was unintentional. Can we return to the subject of the fleet’s arrival here? I would like an approximate timetable, as would Adm. Taylor, I am certain.
To: Adm. Fallon
From: Adm. Cantlebree
CC: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth, Adm. Rogers, Adm. Taylor
Date: 10/1/29
You do think you could have done better, though. Admit it.
From: Grand Adm. Jes-Tereth
To: Adm. Fallon, Adm. Taylor, Adm. Cantlebree, Adm. Rogers
Date: 10/1/29
(1) Fallon and Taylor, I am given to understand you are within easy distance of one another’s respective posts and it is prohibitively expensive — not to mention absurd — that you should be sending physical memoranda between yourselves via arcane portal to Stormwind and the Admiralty rather than having an actual fucking conversation.
(2) You will not make the navy get there any faster by picking a fight, Fallon. I am not sending anyone to Pandaria to break it up.
(3) Cantlebree, if you egg them on I swear I will court-martial you.
(4) I do not have a firm timetable as yet for the fleet’s arrival. The fleet has not yet departed (as you have presumably inferred), chiefly for want of ships. We are anticipating three new vessels out of the Stormwind yard as well as two from Fallon Harbor. I will certainly advise when I have further information.
(5) Fallon, because it sounds like you desperately need a project, you are hereby authorized to begin recruiting local laborers and to embark on the dredging of the recommended harbor.
(6) I do not want another memo from any of you to cross my desk for the remainder of the week unless Garrosh Hellscream shows up personally at your station.
Cantlebree -
Of course I could have. But you would have done worse.
F