Jack of Harts

Kings Bay in Georgia had been a ballistic missile submarine base for over half a century when the Second Great Depression began. The crews were famous for remaining underwater, acting like holes in the ocean, for months on end. Always ready to fire missiles that could end civilization as we knew it. Aware that if the balloon ever went up, they could be the last surviving Americans in the world. Or that some Soviet or Chinese attack submarine could kill them before they knew it. Mutually Assured Destruction was the entire basis of their existence. They hoped they would never be required to fire their weapons, but if they did, they would kill as many Soviets, Russians, Chinese, or whatever the target of the decade was. Then one of their number fired missiles on America. On Virginia. The worst part for the crews of Kings Bay is that the crew that fired on home was not a phantom threat to them. They knew each other. They went to the bars together. Many had served on every boat. They were faces and names and friends. And then other Americans killed them after they followed the worst orders in the world. It is impossible to underestimate how that affected them.

Wilmington, North Carolina had long been home to various Coast Guard cutters, usually named Diligence, long before the Second Great Depression began. The last of them had departed for Florida decades before due to the changing nature of the Coast Guard’s mission, but when that ship was retired, Wilmington purchased her and brought her home again. They kept her seaworthy, took her out on celebrity cruises, and generally treated her as the city’s most welcome guest and attraction. Then the Second Great Depression began, and North Carolina realized it required a navy of its own. They had very little to work with. They were no longer blessed with major United States naval bases, but they did have multiple Navy and Coast Guard reserve stations, filled with naval reservists looking for a what to serve their State. And they had Diligence. That was how a 210 foot retired Coast Guard cutter became the flagship of a major American State Navy. She did not serve in that capacity for long. They acquired better ships in time. But she was the first flagship of the North Carolina Navy, and Wilmington does not let anybody walk by her dock without telling them of that fact.