So! After a massive rush of shit to the brain, I came up with this. KanColle... urgh, I don't know what to think of it. I don't know if it's utterly brilliant, or utterly shit. The concept behind it is fantastic, when you think about the spiritual aspect of it. But the anime. That f-in' anime.
It's like they took memes, doujins, fanart, historical jokes, and topped it off with the game itself and threw it all in a blender.
This thing could be fantastic. Seriously, what the hell? Get your shit together!.
Anyway, this is my response to Death Knight 1993's challenge, which has the following rules:
1: Shipgirl Shepard
2: Systems Alliance Tech must be unusual or exotic (i.e., gauss, particle, gravity-based weapons)
3: Non-Turian First Contact
4: Shipgirls are unique to humanity, or at least at first
I also add my own rules to this, the second of which was suggested to me:
5: The Abyssals drive humanity off their homeworld
6: The Abyssals are connected somehow to the Reapers
Anyway, this will be my first crossover attempt. I have a good grasp of KanColle and some headcanon I've got going, which I'll post in the second chapter. What I need is a refresher on Mass Effect - it's been a good two years since I played ME3. If any of you guys could point me to some primers, maybe some youtube cutscene movies, that would be awesome. I need a good grasp on the characters as well. Garrus is just too awesome, I don't want to mess him up.
I hope you enjoy.
-RYNO
PS: I would like to leave it up to you guys what ships humanity develops. I have two in mind so far - the Rorqual from EVE Online and the Wells-class ship by Do-Mo on Deviantart, but I need more. Humanity doesn't develop strictly down the Element Zero line. What I'm looking for are ships that are bulky, heavy, industrial, or just plain ugly. Focused on function rather than form, right? They can be anywhere between a fighter to upwards of four kilometers, but no larger than that.
Remember, the uglier the better.
I would also like ideas for a suitably large space station, since humans get driven off Earth. With how shit goes down with the Abyssal War and how many get off Earth in the first place, there are only around 1.5 billion humans left. Still a lot but there's 7.2 billion alive today, just to put it into perspective.
The Admiral sighed as he looked over the final action report. It had been nearly a week after the battle… the battle, and they were still tallying the damage. They were successful, true, but at what cost?
Yokosuka Naval Base had come under a strange, serene calm. Perfect blue skies stretched on forever, the salty air pungent, cold, yet refreshing all the same. Everyone who lived on base carved out a life for themselves – Mamiya's was open every day, the supply shipgirl more than happy to sell her wares. The bathhouse was seldom unoccupied, and the mess hall always open and ready to serve food. Dull thuds that reverberated in the Admiral's gut were the telltale sign of large caliber naval cannons firing in the training yard. Today would not have been different from any other day…
Except that it was. Things would never be the same.
In the weeks following the battle at the Abyssal AF base, Yokosuka was beset upon by Abyssal fleets from as far out as Hawai'i, the sheer number of them pushing them back from Truk Base. There was no strategy, no overarching war plan – it was a fight for their lives, plain and simple. In the confusion of the retreat from Truk Base, Kuma-class cruiser Kitakami was shelled by an Abyssal Ta-class battleship and sunk. Kuma-class cruiser Oi, disregarding orders from her superior, charged the approaching Abyssal Fleet and vanished into the fire. She was never seen again, but radar would show that she lasted well into the night, only losing contact after ramming an Abyssal.
Abyssal vessels pushed further and further to Yokosuka, finally coming within visual range on December 7th, 2070. The Yokosuka fleet was able to defeat the lead Abyssals but were forced to retreat when reinforcements arrived, only after giving the acting Admiral enough time to evacuate the base. On December 9th, 2070 at 0532 hours, Abyssal carriers carpet bombed Yokosuka. Of the sixty-seven fleet girls that Yokosuka fielded, only twenty-nine were able to rendezvous for the retreat, the rest out on patrol and forced to relocate to Magadan in the Sea of Okhotsk. Luckily, none had been damaged and escape the Abyssal Fleet's rampage, and assumed complete control of the Sea of Okhotsk.
The former Yokosuka fleet retreated to Shanghai, suffering from crippled morale once it was known that Mutsuki-class destroyer, Mutsuki, had refused to retreat. She was last seen at the Fleet Girl Memorial by Fubuki-class destroyer, Fubuki. In addition to that, Yamato-class battleship, Yamato, had been acting as rear guard in the retreat and took the brunt of the enemies' fire, damaging her keel – analogous to the human spine, paralyzing her. Even with the use of instant repair buckets, it would take an estimated five years, two months, fourteen days, and eighteen hours to repair her, now impossible due to the fact that Shanghai lacked a dedicated repair dock for Shipgirls.
Lacking the fleet's flagship and several destroyers, the Yokosuka fleet were forced to defend the city from encroaching Abyssal ships. Over the course of three months, the Yokosuka fleet sank eight Abyssal carriers, twenty-three battleships, fifty-four cruisers, and one-hundred and nineteen destroyers, including the Abyssal Battleship Princess, at the cost of severely damaging Shipgirls Nagato, Mutsu, Atago, Fubuki, Akagi, Kongo, Tama, and sinking Kuma-class cruiser Kuma.
At this point, of the original Yokosuka fleet's twenty-nine members, five Shipgirls had been sunk and eight severely damaged with no way to repair them, leaving the fleet with only sixteen Shipgirls, with even more Abyssal ships approaching from as far off as the Americas and Australia. In addition, the Yokosuka fleet had to contend with dissatisfied citizens, concerned that they weren't doing as good a job as they should have.
The Admiral was sad to say that at that point even his spirit was broken. The situation was hopeless, with multiple Shipgirls outright refusing to fight anymore.
And then, a breakthrough. In the month-long lull between the Battle of Shanghai and the arrival of more Abyssal fleets, the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute finished a project that had been in progress since the start of the Abyssal War, entirely in secret – the completion of a working particle cannon. At the onset of the Second Battle of Shanghai, wherein only Kaga, Jintsuu, and Naka sortied, SARI appealed to the Chinese government and requisitioned six hundred thirty-two thousand, three hundred and eighty-four megawatts of electricity – the estimated power consumption of China over one hour. With the power of the entire country behind it, the particle cannon, relocated to the top of the Shanghai Tower, fired on the Abyssal fleet nearly twenty miles offshore. The particle beam impacted the water's surface and exploded with the force of over 300 kilotons of TNT, devastating the Australian Abyssal Fleet and boiling over five hundred thousand gallons of seawater. During the Second Battle of Shanghai, only a single torpedo spread was fired.
However, the barrel of the particle cannon completely melted, forcing repairs and redesign.
This was the turning point of the war. With the Zeus Particle Cannon in place on top of the Shanghai Tower, SARI constructed a second, lower yield particle cannon that would only require ten thousand megawatts to fire. Meanwhile, the Yokosuka fleet had been given aid from SARI with an improvised repair dock, and the return of damaged Shipgirls significantly boosted morale. With Yamato out of commission for the foreseeable future, the next plan of attack was to retake Yokosuka and reestablish control over the Pacific – unfortunately, it had been taken over by a second Airfield Princess and used as a forward operating base for the Abyssals, and thus too dangerous for a frontal assault . It was at this point that the Yokosuka Fleet gained a new member – Major Misato Okita, an officer from the former JSSDF.
With Major Okita assisting Secretary Nagato, the Yokosuka Fleet was able to come up with an audacious plan – mount the newly constructed Archimedes positron cannon on a barge and pull it out to sea with a tugboat, and use it as a mobile artillery platform to assault Yokosuka. Using the twenty-four Shipgirls' boilers as generators, the Archimedes cannon fired on Yokosuka fifteen miles offshore, well out of range and safe from retaliation. Major Okita fired ten low-power shots, decimating the Abyssal forces at Yokosuka.
In the coming months, the Yokosuka Fleet would rebuild Yokosuka Naval Base under the protection of the Archimedes cannon, preventing any Abyssal from coming close. Battleship Yamato was able to be brought home and placed in stasis, where she would wait out her long repair period in her sleep. Additionally, an assault on the former Truk Base rooted out a poorly constructed Abyssal garrison, giving the Yokosuka Fleet a base to operate out of the Philippines once more.
Now that Japan was safe once more, the rest of the Yokosuka fleet returned from Magadan, much to the joy of the Shipgirls, and morale soared once more despite the losses they'd had.
With most of the Asian seas now under human control, it was time to determine just how much territory the Abyssals controlled. Most Abyssal presence in the Southern Hemisphere was based around Australia, which had become completely overrun and far too dangerous to approach despite the loss of its fleet. Africa, lacking its own navy, had only a few garrisons around the peninsula, which were eliminated by the Exploration Fleet consisting of Kongo, Hiei, Haruna, Kirishima, Taka, Akagi, Yuudachi, Shimakaze, and flagship Fubuki. The coast would later be reinforced with additional Archimedes positron cannon emplacements, which had become the sole human-made weapon effective against the Abyssals, aside from the Zeus cannon still stationed in Shanghai. With Africa safely under human control, the Exploration Fleet traveled up the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, to find another shipgirl fleet stationed out of the Lisbon Port, capital of Portugal.
With Lisbon under heavy siege from an Abyssal fleet, the Exploration fleet assisted the local Shipgirls in driving back the enemy. The Lisbon fleet was woefully underpowered, with only the España-class battleship, España, Mendez Nunez-class cruiser, Nunez, and the Almirante Cerverva-class cruiser, Cerverva defending the port, with all others having already been sunk.
The Exploration stayed in Lisbon for several months while the city was rebuilt and an Archimedes cannon built and shipped out to defend the port, whereupon España, Nunez, and Cerverva joined the fleet in their continuing journey north.
Once in European waters, the Exploration Fleet encountered the largest shipgirl presence yet. The Royal Navy, consisting of the Britsh Pacific Fleet, were combined with the German Kreigsmarine and had been highly successful in pushing out the Abyssal presences, taking back the entirety of the British Isles and the North and Baltic Seas, allowing minor maritime trade once again, despite the tensions between the two shipgirl fleets.
Acting as a mediator, the Exploration Fleet managed to get the two fleets to cooperate and shared the status of the Pacific with German and British Admirals, as well as informing them of the positron cannon. Britain and Germany immediately commissioned dozens of the cannons after seeing footage of their effectiveness, mounting them along the coast of Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, and Spain, as well as cooperating to commission more to place along the coast of Africa, India, and Indonesia to help curb the threat from Australia. Multiple emplacements were installed along the coast of Russia as well, not having access or the resources to Shipgirls as other nations.
With their borders secure, the fleet admirals and Major Okita reestablished communications with the allied countries to come up with a plan and start pushing back the Abyssal threat even more. While Australia was confirmed to be an Abyssal hotspot, the same could not be said of the Americas, which had been determined to be the source of most major Abyssal offenses in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
With the entire coast of the Atlantic Ocean secure, it was decided that the Royal Navy and Kreigsmarine would rendezvous at the Yokosuka naval base, regroup at Truk Base, and push from the Pacific to determine just how far the Abyssal presence had spread. This plan would be called Operation Pacifica, the largest naval sortie in history, consisting of one hundred and seventy-six Shipgirls, fourteen replenishment Shipgirls, and twenty barges stocked with munitions and food supplies. One additional barge was equipped with an Archimedes cannon, but would only be operable if there were Shipgirls to power it. Following from the rear would be the Yokosuka Base Admiral and Major Okita in the JDS Kongo, a modern missile destroyer, both to provide mission support and logistics.
To say that Kongo disliked the destroyer would be an understatement.
The combined forces of three different countries' navies was called the Coalition of Fleets, the largest since the Allies of World War II.
The first base they found was on Kauai, a mere garrison meant to warn the rest of the Abyssal forces. With no human left alive on the islands to worry about, Kauai disappeared under a hail of shells and missiles. O'ahu, Moloka'i, and Maui were successfully assaulted and cleansed of all Abyssal presence. However, it was the island of Hawai'i itself that things turned.
An Airfield Princess had taken up residence in the island… that is to say, she became the island itself. Hawai'i itself had been assimilated by the Princess, becoming a living organism. The skies were thick with the Princess's drones, the Princess seemingly invincible due to the sheer size of the island, in addition to the dozens of Abyssal ships protecting her.
In the chaos, the slower Shipgirls of the British Pacific Fleet were hit hard. Many were injured by the sheer number of bombs and bullets, sinking nearly a dozen destroyers, cruisers, and even sunk the Old Lady herself, Warspite – however, only after taking a spread of torpedoes meant for the JDS Kongo, the Abyssals having sensed the humans aboard.
The Kriegsmarine Fleet was hit hard as well, losing half a dozen cruisers and injuring nearly half the fleet.
The Yokosuka Fleet was perhaps the only fleet that made any headway. Nearly their entire squadron of destroyers mounted a coordinated strike on the Abyssal ships, launching hundreds of torpedoes that devastated the Abyssals. This action rallied the remaining fleets, and they thinned the aircraft enough that the carriers could launch bombers on the Princess.
Hundreds of fighters dropped their payload on the island, not leaving a single piece of land untouched, yet the Princess still sent more fighters in the air. In a second coordinated attack, the fleet's entire complement of cruisers, destroyers, and battleships fired their cannons on the island, expending hundreds of shells over the course of a minute. Finally, the entire island exploded, signaling the end of the Abyssal.
After the battle, it was found that eight of the British Pacific Fleet's ships had been sunk, with thirty-six of the fleet's original seventy-one damaged. The Kreigsmarine suffered massive damage, 23 of their destroyers sunk by bombs, with all but the Bismarck having taken damage. The Yokosuka Fleet had fared much better, having lost no ships, yet over fifty Shipgirls had taken damage in one form or another. The amount of damage that the Princess had dished out was shocking, and thoroughly demoralized the fleet.
It was determined that they would return to Yokosuka and Shanghai to repair and rearm, but before they would leave, light carrier Shokaku sent out a flight of recon planes to scout out the ocean they hadn't crossed yet.
This decision would change the entire course of the war.
The waters approaching the Americas were absolutely infested with Abyssal ships, far too many to count. More than that however, the planes had been able to fly high enough to see the coast of Alaska and Canada. What they saw was shocking – Abyssals had absorbed themselves into the land, turning the ground itself into Abyssal factories. Belching smog high into the sky, the land itself was churning out Abyssal after Abyssal.
The news was shared even mid-transit back to Yokosuka.
Upon returning, the Admiral commissioned SARI to build as many Archimedes cannons as they could, and pushed the docks in both Yokosuka and Shanghai to repair the fleet's Shipgirls as fast as they would allow.
With a sigh, the Admiral poured himself a glass of whiskey before taking it down in a single gulp. A week had passed since the news that put a shiver down his spine, and he still hadn't revealed it. He'd even sworn Shokaku to secrecy, threatening to scrap her should she reveal what she saw to anyone. This would change everything – had changed everything – and he needed to take stock of what they had to counter this new threat… if there was anything that even could.
SARI had already pushed out a trio of Archimedes cannons. One would be emplaced on Maui, with the other two going north to defend against their largest weakness at the moment – Alaska. Should they fail to barricade that stretch of sea, Abyssal ships would sweep down from the north like a plague.
What concerned him even more than that, however, were their dwindling supplies. Resources were still coming in, sure, but they had to venture further and further away from the base and into China itself. Within a few decades they would be strip mining Africa, and then… they'd be spent. Humanity would be finished.
The Admiral clenched his fist. He refused for this to be the final generation of humanity. He refused to simply lay down and die at the Abyssal's feet, either. Zeus was their first game changer. The Coalition of Fleets was the second. What would be the third?
He leaned back in his chair, spinning to face the sky. Perhaps the clouds would give him the answer…
The Admiral snorted.
Maybe he could requisition mining rights in Russia – if he could get his hands on some bauxite veins, the carriers would be able to launch hundreds of squadrons, with thousands of fighters, with hundreds of thousands of bombs. But… there had to be another way.
His options were to fight, or flee. But with nowhere else to flee to, they had no choice but to fight, and fighting simply wasn't an option for anything other than a massacre.
The Admirals gaze was distant, lost in the sky before he snapped back to the present and gave the sky a critical glare.
…Or did he have an option?
He thought, remembering times before the war, and a massive grin split his bearded face. If he remembered correctly, the answer to their problems was right over their heads.
-O-O-O-
The Admiralty Board, once the center for the defense of all of Britain, had only been reinstated in the last two months. With the Abyssal threat curbed, the state of emergency had been lifted over downtown London and trade across Europe had been reestablished, returning much of the country to life as it was before the Abyssal outbreak. That said, London was under reconstruction from the near two decades of neglect, and under the pale clouds the sound of buildings being torn down and repaired could be heard all across the city.
The Old War Office, located on Whitehall Court, had once been where Winston Churchill himself had managed the British Army. While it had been moved to the Ministry of Defense, the War Office had been repurposed into where the Admiralty Board met once a year to discuss the status of the military. Now that the government had been reestablished and contact with outside countries restored, the British Admiralty Board grew to include Japan, Germany, Spain, France, Russia, China, Eastern Europe, India, and Italy, both as a place to discuss military but also domestic and governmental matters. Here, the Admirals, de facto leaders of their countries, made themselves heard on what they needed and what had to be done.
Needless to say, much of it was bickering. These nine men and one woman were seated at a round table, in a brightly lit room with one wall overlooking the street below. The fanciful casing in the walls was lost on them as their tempers flared.
It was much like children, sad to say.
"If we don't get more Archimedes shipments soon, the Abyssals will overrun us once more!" the German admiral shouted, a wiry man wearing a grey overcoat and an officer's cap. "Our coast is completely exposed!"
The Italian Admiral snorted and shook his head. "Almeno hai Archimede," he muttered, looking frail and thin in his grey suit. "Noi non abbiamo nemmeno il cibo."
"You're short on food?" the Chinese Admiral asked incredulously, his military uniform wrinkled and unpressed. "We need metal, water, food – China is still the largest nation in the world, we need supplies more than anyone!"
The Russian Admiral, a heavyset man that strained the buttons of his fur-lined greatcoat, groaned and tiredly dropped his head in his hands. "Bozhe moi," he grumbled in a deep bariton. "Volka nogi kormyat. Resources are scarce, friend. War does not make good times."
"We would have supplies if your so-called 'Shipgirls' did not eat the equivalent of Shanghai!"
The Spainsh Admiral snorted and adjusted his glasses. "So what would you suggest us do?" he asked. "Scrap them?"
"Yes."
The entire table looked at the man in shock.
"Think about it!" the Chinese Admiral shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "We have a weapon effective against the Abyssals! It is time to consolidate resources and remove the chaff."
The German pounded his fists against the table and shot to his feet. "To scrap them means to kill them!" he barked. "I will not have the ones who've given us a chance to fight back simply tossed aside!"
Much to the German's anger, the Italian slowly got to his feet as well. "I vote they be decommissioned as well. We cannot afford to supply them any longer."
With the Admiralty Board divided, the room erupted in enraged shouting.
The only one who remained seat was the Yokosuka Admiral, the Japanese representative. A man in his late forties, his hair and beard had prematurely gone to white while his black uniform all but hung off his tall, wiry frame. His eyes were shadowed by the officer's cap on his head, and his expression undiscernible as he loosened the white scarf around his neck. With a deep breath, the Admiral got to his feet and glared at the squabbling men.
Things were so much simpler when it was just Yokosuka, he thought to himself.
The sight of the usually passive man caused the argument around him to slowly die, starting with the German, and slowly the room quieted until the echoes of their screaming match stopped reverberating between the walls. It was quiet enough that they could hear each other breathing.
"Gentlemen," the Admiral said, "we have a more important situation on our hands."
The Chinese scoffed. "What is more important than what we were discussing? Shipgirls aren't necessary anymore –"
"When I want your opinion I will ask for it," the Admiral snarled, his eyes seeming to glow red under his cap and the sudden anger stunning the Chinese into silence.
The Admiral held his glare for a moment longer before he reached inside his coat and pulled out a manila folder, gently setting on the table. "We owe everything to the Shipgirls. If not for them, we would have ended up like the Americas."
This statement confused all of them. "But, we haven't heard from them!" the Russian protested.
"And you wouldn't have," the Admiral stated. "Gentlemen, we can't get rid of the Shipgirls simply because, if we kill them now, the Abyssals will know we will be weak, and they will come for blood."
The Chinese had recovered himself, and laughed. "You speak of those things like they are alive. You forget that they are weapons. And how would the Abyssals come for blood? The only other assaults are coming from across the seas."
The Admiral glared at the Chinese. "Those things are living, breathing souls, and you dishonor them and what they represent."
The Chinese scoffed and looked away.
It was just as well, and the Admiral pushed the infuriating man out of his mind as he continued, "Now, I must clarify. You are correct in that the assaults are coming from across the seas. But, they are from the Americas."
Now this was enough to keep even the Chinese from speaking. The silence was heavy enough that they could hear a clock ticking from the next room.
The Frenchman gulped, nervous and sweating. "N-now, when you say from the Americas… do you mean the Americans are responsible for the Abyssals?"
The Admiral shook his head, and all of them breathed a sigh of relief. "No, what I mean is that the Abyssals have taken over the Americas. If you had read my report, you would have read that the Airfield Abyssal on Hawai'I island had assimilated itself into the island, and was using the island itself as material for its planes."
The Italian, Chinese, Frenchman, and Spaniard looked incredibly sheepish.
The Admiral ignored this. "The same has happened to the Americas. Light carrier Shokaku sent up a recon squadron as we retreated, and this folder contains the pictures her planes took."
He tossed the folder across the table, spilling the contents out. The other Admirals had reach for one, but what they saw shocked them – the coastline and surrounding waters of the Pacific Ocean turned a disgusting, fleshy grey, too far to make out any details, but enough to see that the grey stretched from Alaska all the way down to California, at least from what they could interpret after piecing the pictures together.
"Admirals, there are literally hundreds of thousands of Abyssal ships between us and the Americas," he said gravely. "We cannot defeat them."
His words made the Admirals panic, and amid their confused gibbering the German shouted, "But if we cannot defeat them, then what was the point of constructing the Fleet Girls?!"
The Admiral raised his cap slightly, revealing the shadow of his eyes, and was enough to silence the men around him once more. "We cannot defeat them yet. Our Shipgirls are not enough to defeat them on their own. We need supplies, first and foremost. We need to incorporate the Archimedes cannon into their weaponry, and lastly, we need to secure our borders. We simply do not have the strength at this time to continue pushing into Abyssal territory."
"I-incorporate the Archimedes into those things!?" the Chinese gaped. "Are you mad?! What if they turn on us? We need to keep the Archimedes under our control!"
"They are not the enemy!" the Admiral roared, making the lot of them flinch. "They have served us time and time again, both in this life and their last. In fact, the only enemy I see before me is you!"
The Chinese fell back in his seat, gaping the ferocity the Admiral was leveling at him.
The Admiral huffed, before he let out a long sigh.
Suddenly the door behind him banged open, and with a squealing of shoes Secretary Ship Nagato skidded to a stop, her eyes frantic as she searched for her admiral. Her eyes widened when she saw him, relief spreading across her normally stern features as she demanded, "Admiral sir, are you alright? I heard you yelling."
She quickly strode to the Admiral, ignoring the men gaping at her short skirt as she made sure her Admiral was unharmed.
The Admiral nodded. "I'm fine, Nagato. Thank you."
The Shipgirl nodded, throwing a stern glare at the Admirals before she spun on her heel and stalked out of the room, slamming the door closed behind her.
The Chinese seemed to snap awake. "W-was that –"
"Yes," The Admiral said. "The battleship Nagato. Laid down on the twenty-eighth of August, nineteen seventeen, launched on the ninth of November, nineteen nineteen. Used for target practice," he said with derision, "on the twenty-fifth of July, nineteen forty-six. And reincarnated in the body of Maya Ibuki, resident of Tokyo."
Such news would have shocked most people… yet these men were all too aware how a Shipgirl was constructed. To them, it was simply old news, yet to have a face to the name was thoroughly humbling.
"So all the Shipgirls that sunk…" the Chinese trailed off.
The Admiral nodded. "Yes. They have died for a second time… but their spirits live on, as long as we remember them."
He turned back to the other Admirals. "But we're getting off topic. What you see before you," he motioned at the pictures, "is similar to what we saw on Hawai'i, but on a much grander scale. The assimilated Airfield Abyssal used resources on the island to make and deploy dozens of drones. With our calculations based on that and the amount of territory the Abyssals have taken, they are able to field one hundred and fifty vessels every minute."
The Admirals paled.
"And this is assuming they haven't taken South America as well," the Admiral said with a sardonic chuckle.
The Russian opened and closed his mouth several times, before seemingly deflating in his coat. "Chort vozmi."
The Admiral snorted. "Quite. We do not have the resources to deal with this threat, or any way to prepare ourselves."
The Chinese was terrified, shaking in his seat as he placed a palm on the table to steady himself. "But, but what of the Archimedes? They have been successful!"
"Only because the Abyssals have not fielded an armada large enough to overwhelm them," the Admiral said gravely. "It is a pinpoint weapon, at best. It cannot cause the same level of destruction as the Zeus, and SARI has been unable to replicate it. It is effective, but even it would eventually be overwhelmed if we were attacked. We have around two decades worth of natural resources, and then our planet will be spent. "
The German stared at the picture in his hands before finally tossing it aside, and leaned back in his chair with his hands supporting the back of his head. "So humanity is finished," he muttered.
"No."
The other Admirals eyed the Yokosuka native, taking in just how rigid he stood, and the conviction in his voice.
"We will not die to the Abyss."
For a brief, brief moment, they almost believed him.
"How?" the Frenchman asked. "As you just said, we can't ready ourselves for an all-out attack, and the Abyssals have no concept of just that outside of ambush tactics. What are we supposed to do, negotiate with them?"
The absurdity of his statement made them all give pained chuckles, reminded of how disastrous the first days of the Abyssal Wars were.
Again, the Admiral shook his head. "Before the start of all this, the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology worked closely with the JSSDF and Johnathan Manswell, CEO of Manswell Industries. If you remember, his corporation was the leading head of extrasolar technologies in the States. It has been so long that it only occurred to me a week ago, but this," he said, pulling a thumb drive from his pocket, "is what will save humanity."
He opened a panel in the table, revealing a small keyboard and slot to insert the drive. Plugging it in, he typed in a rapid-fire command that opened a circular compartment in the center of the table, where a bulky projector sat. It gave a shrill whine before it came to life, projecting a holographic image of a… thing, into the air.
The German frowned, and folded his hands in front of his mouth. "What is this?"
The Admiral steeled himself. Depending on his actions in the next few minutes could very well decide the fate of humanity, and he refused to allow his species to fade to dust. He gestured at the hologram, and said, "This, my friends, is the Rorqual. She was designed as a mining ship, back during when interstellar travel was still controversial. She will save us from our fate."
The Rorqual was a massive ship, to scale of course, but the scale was measured in kilometers – as it was, the hologram took up half of the entire table. The bulky ship was four kilometers in length, the hull in a rough T-shape, with her engines across the horizontal arm. Massive containers were at her sides that could hold millions of tons of materials, enough that made the Admirals salivate at the possibilities. She was a spaceship, something that tickled every one of their childish fantasies.
But then the pin dropped.
"This ship, this spaceship, vhere is it?" the German asked skeptically, his accent coming out in full. "And vhy have we not heard of it before now? Does it even exist?"
"We have no use for a blueprint, we need solutions!" the Chinese bellowed.
"If we don't even have the resources to support ourselves, how do you expect us to build something like this?!"
The room was about to devolve into angered shouting once more, before the Admiral raised his hands in supplication. "Admirals, the Rorqual does exist. It was constructed in space before the Abyssals attacked, and has been above our heads for the last twenty years. She is fully functional – she was to undergo her first voyage, but the Abyssals came two weeks ahead of that time. All she requires is final maintenance checks and superficial construction, but she is ready and waiting for us."
A small voice at the end of the table coughed, and the Eastern European Admiral, who had yet to speak, cleared her throat before politely asking, "Why did we not try to use her before?"
The Admiral sighed – he knew that the woman had only been instated as an Admiral a few years before, and so was not as up to speed as the rest of them. "We did. Almost all of our aircraft and military vessels were destroyed by the Abyssals during the first year or so, and any rockets we sent up into orbit were shot down. But now that we've retaken this half of the world, we can send up shuttles. We can start to rebuild."
The room was silent for a long moment, and then, with a scraping of his chair on the floor, the German Admiral got to his feet and set his hat on the table. "…No other plans have worked," he began. "Fighting does not work, running does not work. And waiting them out will not work. I believe this is our best option."
He straightened his posture, and clasped his hands behind his back. "I say we go forward with this plan."
Quickly following him was the Russian, who tottered to his feet with a great wobble of his belly. "I will not see our Mother Russia reduced to some monstrosity. I say we go forward with the Rorqual."
The Italian shot from his chair. "Lo voto per il Rorqual!" he squeaked.
The Admiral felt a sense of relief – that was three votes already.
The Chinese stared, mouth gaping.
The Frenchman got to his feet. "Oui."
The Indian representative – who the Admiral forgot was even there – got to his feet and gave a silent nod, followed by the Spaniard.
"This is foolishness!" the Chinese bellowed. He had been watching as, one by one, his fellow admirals were suckered in by this fool's errand and couldn't contain his growing anger any longer. "A ship waiting to be used? Ha! It's too convenient; this can only be a trick!"
The admirals stared at him at the Chinese berated them.
"I will not stand for this!" he raved. "I always knew that this Admiralty Board would fail. We will only survive if we hold the line! I, for one, will not let my country be swayed by fool's errands."
He stepped back from the table. "China hereby removes itself from the Admiralty. Good luck with the Abyssals."
The man then turned and strode out the door, not even sparing a glance back as he slammed it behind him.
With a disappointed shake of his head, the Admiral muttered, "Bakame," under his breath, before he turned back to the tables. "With that out of the way, we have another problem. How do we get up there?"
There was a long pause before the Frenchman and the Indian looked at each other and sighed. "We do not have launch capability," the Frenchman said. "Our rockets were dismantled for resources."
The Eastern European frowned as well. "I remember our rockets being strapped with explosives and launched on the Abyssals. It… failed, spectacularly. Baghdad is still a crater."
It was the Admiral's turn to disappoint them. "Japan has the same issue. We launched our rockets with explosive warheads… it didn't work," he said hesitantly.
When they turned to the Russian, they were surprised to see the normally jovial man sitting there with a blank expression, staring at nothing. And then, he chuckled. A wry grin spread across his face, and his chuckles grew into an unstoppable peal of laughter that echoed off the walls, stunning the other Admirals.
The Russian swept a hand through his wispy hair. "I-I apologize," he managed to spit out between laughs, tears streaming from his eyes. "It is just- I cannot believe that history would repeat itself like, like this!"
With the Admirals waiting for him to clarify, the Russian, still wracked with chuckles, managed to say, "In World War II, the Eastern Front was why Germany fell… no offense to you, of course."
The German gave a respectful nod.
"We of Mother Russia are proud, to this day, of that," he continued. "And now, we are in a position to lead the charge again."
He grinned. "We have six Tsyklon-5 rockets in storage, and we have the equipment to set up command control in the Kremlin."
A collective sigh of relief ran through the Admirals.
"Are they launch capable?" the Admiral asked.
The Russian stroked his chin in thought, tossling his beard before he nodded. "Da. We have been maintaining them – they only require final maintenance checks, and then they will be ready."
At those words, the Admiral felt calmer than he'd ever had before, even before the Abyssals. Despite his doubts, he'd succeeded. The Admiralty listened to him, and accepted his words. They would survive. China was a massive loss, likely taking their Archimedes production with them, but JAIST had worked with them enough to get their hands on the blueprints to the weapon. They could replicate them, possibly even improve on them now that SARI wasn't in control now. He had no doubt that China would raise a fuss, but now that their admiral had withdrawn from the Admiralty Board, they would have no say in what would happen in the coming months.
The Admiral let himself sink in his chair in relief as his fellow admirals discussed just what needed to happen to get the rockets ready for launch, satisfied that he'd been able to win a decisive battle against the Abyssals.