AN: It was a long time I updated it... You can blame Operation Siren for this and my overall lazyiness as well.
This chapter is probably inconsistent as well... R&R, if possible.
THE FALLEN MOON
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONFIDENCE OF THE MIGHTY
There was a lot of complains that revived commander of the Combined Ghost Fleet had… Among them was the inability of her science vessels to properly calibrate cloning chambers. However, because of her memories that were downloaded into her new body, Hyun-Ae didn't really cared about it right now.
"Do you want to tell me that you lost "Arizona" to these "Sirens" because of your masquerade?" – Chang'E turned her eyes away from the girl that was standing near the desk and glaring at her. As the lifelong flagship and secretary, the warship knew that it was not a question that required answer – "Your idiocy makes me wonder how I allowed you to be my flagship for such a long time…"
"That was our underestimation of our enemies…"
"I don't need your excuses!" – The girl raised her voice and lightly hit the desk with her small hand – "You lost a perfectly fine warship…" – It was not complete loss because "Arizona" cognition module survived. Even if it would not survive, Chang'E had back-up copies of all warships that followed Daji's mutiny. It was the main reason that the second powerful warship of the New United Nations performed mission control duties.
"We could restore our military might soon… With factory satellite our production capabilities are superior to this era Earth…" – It was the main reason to salvage the factory satellite in the first place. They had mobile dockyards and land based ones but in comparison to old Zentradi relics it was nothing notable.
"So, what did you find about those "Siren" enemies?" – Hyun-Ae moved away from the desk and to the world map that was displayed on the wall nearby. Antarctica and Japan were colored in the same green, while part of Europe that should belong to Axis was red with some other countries in bluish.
"We don't have information to even start guessing where they came from but according to our understanding – they are fully capable to manipulate quantum field," – Chang'E changed the world map with some data that was available to her on the wall – "Command structure remind us of our own HMS Project which means that it is possible to disable entire fleets by destroying core units with precise strikes…"
"Based on this information, their ability in EM warfare superior to ours?" – It was not on the level where they had to rely on special equipment like it happened during Vajra Conflict of 2058-2059 but their ability to deploy forces would be limited, especially with their new enemy capabilities to mess with reality and time itself.
Hyun-Ae waved her hand to change information on the screen and looked at the diagram and schematics. It was clear for her that her fleet still had an edge in weapon and defense technology…
"What about… Those quantum relics that you call "Wisdom Cubes"… Any useful discoveries, aside our ability to manipulate humanization process through fold crystals?" – It was essential to understand how things works in order to avoid nasty surprises like it happened numerous times in the past.
"No, we had no time to process this problem properly…" – There was more pressing matters for the fleet to deal with. All was based on their primary directives and own understanding of those directives – "I can assume that these quantum relics can manifest information in the form of proper object based on specific information field… However, how we can use it properly, is hardly on the priority list."
Turning her back toward the screen, Hyun-Ae walked toward the desk and took a folder with "Kaga" label on it. She opened it and flipped through several pages of different information that was put in specific order for easier understanding.
"You started to mess with humans of this timeline… After meeting this recruit?" – The girl dropped the folder onto the table and sighed – "You should let her die and avoid mixing with humanity as long as possible…"
These exact words the warship told to Bifrost when she dragged Kaga in the past but after some thought, she allowed the Sakura battleship join their ranks. With Kaga's help, they managed to gather some crucial information about current state of the world and even experiment on the fox girl in order to get some information about how kansen functioned…
"Well, there is no turning back…" – It was impossible to return to the past. At least it was not possible to return to the same past in order to change present. One should concentrate on problems that swarmed them right now instead of thinking about "what if" situations – "What is our current standing in the world?"
"We allied ourselves with the Sakura Empire, the Japanese Empire of this world. Commander Daji performed several land operations to ensure their cooperation…" – Despite their efforts, the current opinion of masses in the Sakura Empire was mostly negative and only Imperial kansen were semi-friendly with them – all thanks to indiscriminate slaughter of human soldiers on land.
"War crimes and alike?" – The Empire of the Rising Sun was pretty much unhuman, on par with Nazis, during their conquest of the East. They never fully payed for their crimes…
"Happened but not on the same scale like it had happened in our history… Probably existence of the new unknown enemy forced them to put their efforts into different direction, though we don't really know," – Chang'E sent her reports right after her admiral recovered enough to read them but still summarized it once again.
"Other major players still the same?" – It seems that existence of new variable slightly changed that flow of history but not enough to completely divert it from the same path.
"Almost… Probably…"
"Probably?" – Hyun-Ae questiongly looked at her flagship and raised her brow – "What do you mean probably?"
"Aside the Sakura Empire, we did not make any contacts with other nations so far. They know about our existence though through our demonstration of might during negotiation with the Empire," – Gunboat diplomacy in its finest…
"Great…" – Their aggressiveness, technological superiority and strange naval tactics probably made other big nation wary about them – "Where is this stupid fur ball now?"
"Commander Daji currently observes construction of Macross City in the Sakura Empire…" – Chang'E didn't inform the fox warship about their commander "resurrection" because she was ordered to keep silent for the time being. Aside her, the other "ghost" that knew about the girl was NUNS "Formidable", currently refitted in the dry docks to become temporary flagship for their admiral.
"Order her to prioritize construction of facilities that could be used to rearm our "allies" with our weapons… That can be installed on them…" – The difference in technology base was dramatic, even for Kaga refit, Chang'E and Daji mostly experimented blindly… Kaga's survival was a miracle of sorts…
"Understood… Should I inform…"
"No need… That moron would become distracted," – Hyun-Ae understood how Daji processing unit worked, all because she was built with Sharon Apple chip as the base for her cognition module. Despite her best efforts, the core was still very possessive about specific person to the levels of obsession.
"What are your plans about the Sakura Empire, Your Highness? Should we annex them into our own command structure completely or leave them some autonomy?" – Unlike their own timeline, when ASS-1 crushed and the following Unification War with Space War I, they possessed technology that could allow them to win conflict with Zentradi or fool them to believe that they were their masters… Full unification of Earth nations was not needed…
"I don't need to masquerade myself as the royalty anymore, Chang'E…" – The girl glanced at warship before turning her attention to the screen which displayed the world map once again – "As for the Sakura Empire…" – Hyan-Ae looked at small island nation at the north-west corner of the Pacific Ocean – "Nations of this time period like to form alliances of different kind. Let us form our own alliance then… We will call it Global Defense Initiative…"
Two current world alliances, Azur Lane and Crimson Axis, were almost mirror images of Allies and Axis of their own world. The only difference was existence of Sirens, as their common enemy. However, that unknown variable, despite initial display of strength, was mostly hiding it true strength and did not interfere with the world…
Hyun-Ae believed that this was not coincidence that reports showed that the Siren activity increased dramatically after the Sakura Empire was invaded by Daji combined squadron and dropped after the Empire surrendered. Sirens probably manipulated nations into forming two camps…
The formation of the third alliance should mess with their plans even more, if her guess was right and Sirens wanted to emulate World War II with new technology available for humans. Thus, she wanted to make a new major player and look what kind of response the enemy would show.
"With only the Sakura Empire… Wouldn't others look down on us?" – Alliances were formed to demonstrate unity and might to other nations but with two small nations without proper resource base.
"I doubt that there would be idiots to start conflicts with us… Not after our own moron showed almost all our cards for others to see," – While New United Nations lacked kansen they still possessed enormous battleships and carriers with superior weaponry and defenses – "And… If some appears… We will glass their homeland to send message across the globe…"
"Kaga, could you please sign these documents?" – Souryuu put large pack of papers on the desk of the new general-governor. The construction of the city and repairs of the naval base required a lot of paper work, which was the part of the general-governor workload.
The white fox was not really happy about her situation. All day long, each day nonetheless, she had to approve numerous documents or dismiss them for revisions. It drove her crazy. At least Sakura kansen became more civil with her after they saw her determination in governing…
"The situation stabilized for us…" – The raven-haired aircraft carriers smiled at Kaga, whose tails were swinging from one side to other, demonstrating their owners irritation.
"Iron Blood spies?" – The foxgirl pull out small folder and read through documents in it then she turned her head toward Souryuu – "I thought that they were your allies…" – As the warship, Kaga understood that it was necessity of espionage, even on one's own allies but among the listed spies majority were specialists in sabotage and assassination, not gathering of information.
"I would not call us allies of similar views…" – The carrier put away her pen – "We had similar complains about Azur Lane, that was all," – Other members of Crimson Axis were probably the same – they didn't share their views of the Iron Blood governing body but they couldn't accept how Azur Lane were dealing with Sirens either.
"Send them back to Iron Blood…" – Kaga rummaged through other papers on her desk and after finding other folders, she stack them together with the Iron Blood one – "In coffins, per order of Lady Daji. Do the same with Royals, Eagles, Northern Parliament and etc." – After brief pause, Kaga added – "Ask them to pay the cost of bullets and coffins as well."
"Huh?" – If the Sakura Empire would dare to take such actions against spies during peaceful times, it could lead to unnecessary raise of tension between the Empire and other nations. Souryuu believed that the best action would be deportation and complaints through diplomatic relations…
"Add clause that if they won't pay, we will confiscate their goods from their trading routes as retaliation," – With a sigh, Kaga signed another documents and put them on stack of documents about spies.
"That is basically declaration of war!" – This time the rabbit carrier could not hold her emotions and stood up. She understood that it was not decision that Kaga cooked herself. It was an order from her superiors, probably that blood-crazed red fox with ominous name.
Kaga understood that too. With such provocation, other nations would probably declare war on the Sakura Empire. However, she believed that it was probably to use the Empire as the bait for the New United Nations to take legitimate actions and join the war as the ally to beat the entire world in some specific and spectacular operations. It made her angry but according to Akagi, it was what Amagi suggested to Lady Daji…
Prinze Eugen was standing on the deck of large transport ship which was prepared for her voyage to the south seas, very south ones, when Bismarck walked gracefully to her with one piece of paper – "So… My lord are here to personally send me away?" – The heavy cruiser smiled at her superior but that smiled faded away when she looked at concern on the face of the said superior – "What's going on for you to be that troubled, Bismarck?"
"Here, Eugen, read this," – The de-facto leader of the Iron Blood gave the paper in her hands to her close aide.
"What the…" – Was all that Eugen could get out of her mouth after reading the ridiculous claims in the paper, the diplomatic note from the Sakura Empire. The Sakura Empire executed all Iron Blood spies they managed to find and even asked to pay them the execution cost and transportation fees or else – "They want us to pay or they would ransack our trade routes? Are they completely lost their mind after their defeat?"
"No… I don't think so…" – It was clear for Bismarck that this provocation was meant to anger them into action – to raise tension between the Empire and the Iron Blood in order to start a war – "It's a trap for idiots…" – It was a pity that they lost majority of their spies in the Empire but they did their job and informed them that new Sakura masters wanted to gain more resources, in other words they wanted to start new wars to get those resources – this time with legitimate reasons. And this reason would be helping their ally, or was it protectorate, in wars.
"And our response would be?" – Eugen threw away paper and looked at Bismarck with careless attitude.
"We will pay and send official apologize to the Sakura Empire," – The Iron Blood battleship flatly declared her decision, which would certainly meet some resistance in the government body, while nodding at Eugen – "As for you, Eugen… Sail to the south right now and start negotiation as fast as possible…"
"HOW DARE THEY ARE!" – The high pitched angry voice of Queen Elizabeth echoed through halls of Royal Navy palace. The girl ripped apart paper with demands from the Sakura Empire that was delivered to her by Belfast who stood with emotionless face while her superior raged.
"What has happened, Your Majesty?" – Hood, who was nearby, talking with Newcastle about plans for the next week, turned her attention to the little queen and walked to her.
"Those Sakura bastards threaten us to attack our trade routes if we don't pay for execution of our spies!" – It was unlady like to speak like this, in high voice especially, but the girl did not care right now. She was enraged by the wording in the message so much.
"Your Majesty, please, calm yourself…" – With soothing tone, the pride and glory of the Royal Navy tried to stop her queen from embarrassing herself – "Maybe it was some mistake during translation. It happens from time to time and leads to raise of tensions between nations but in the end it is just a human mistake…" – The battlecruiser looked at Belfast with meaningful glance…
"I think it could be some kind of mistake, Your Majesty," – Politely, the head of Royal Maids voiced her opinion to calm Queen Elizabeth despite believing otherwise. However, she believed that emotional decisions could make situation worse so she supported far-stretched reasoning of Lady Hood.
"We should gather more information before making decision," – Hood said and inwardly sighed – things became more and more complicated after they got new of the Sakura Empire defeat in the two day war against the unknown force, which at least was human nation and not Sirens…
"Send our apology and pay up in double for their troubles," – Sovetskaya Rossiya flatly said while looking at the paper in her hand with a cold smile on her face – "I will inform our superiors about this…" – There was no mistake that they were provoked into taking aggressive action but several lives of failure spies were not the proper reason to risk the wellbeing of millions.
The provocation was so obvious that only complete idiot would bite it… Or a child.
More concerning was the confidence of the people behind the Sakura Empire. They were so confident that they could win the war with entire world… And based on some information, they had technology that even Siren didn't have.
Maybe it was time to switch sides and abandon Azur Lane to their own devices?
Admiral Rhysling loudly slammed the door which startled Yorktown who was sorting documents for him. The carrier turned her head and looked how her commander took a bottle of whiskey, poured some into a glass and emptied it one go before reaching a chair in the corner of the office.
The man sat in the chair while holding his head with his hands, breathing as deep as possible in order to calm himself.
"Something happened, Commander?" – Yorktown asked without trying to reach the admiral who looked like he needed some space. She knew him long enough to understand that it was not something trivial for him to become that agitated.
"Higher ups want you all dead! You and our fleet here…" – With venom in his voice, Howard summarized the order that he got this morning and tried to reason with his superiors to pull back.
"Why do you think our superiors want us dead?" – Her admiral was too emotional with that declaration…
"The Sakura Empire sent us message through diplomatic channels and demanded that we should pay for execution of our spies or they get their payment themselves," – The Capitol was enraged with such provocative demand and ordered military to take action in order to demonstrate the Empire that they would not accept such threats.
"I thought that newcomers didn't care about opinions of the world… Why do they want to have proper Casus Belli to start war against us?" – It was clear that the Sakura Empire was a bait for Eagles to attack them and in return be attacked by the shadow behind them.
"We were probably wrong… And we were wrong about their strength as well…" – Such confident provocation to the entire world… It was foolishness or knowledge about one's own ability to win against the entire world…
HER MAJESTY'S SWARM PROJECT
Abbreviated as HMS Project, this project was the latest development in the artificial intelligence fighter deployment. It became possible with advancement of fold communication technology and development of more complicated and safe encryption. It allows pin-point accurate summon of fighter squadrons from the hidden base to any battlefield within range of drones.
Success of this project made carriers obsolete as the main fighting force of the New United Nations in the long run. Smaller and better protected "queens" should replace them…
NUNS HMS "FORMIDABLE"
Type: Armored Yacht
Class: Uraga Class (base)
Size: 565 meters
Displacement: Standard - 62.200 metric tons
Power System: OT Heat Pile Cluster
Auxiliary Systems: OT Gravity Control, OT Fold System, PPB and ODB Defense Systems, HMS Control System.
Armament: 2 x Anti-Celestial Rapid Fire Missile Launchers, 470 x RFPL CIWS.
Craft: 27 x Variable Figthers.
An old Uraga Class carrier that had been refitted to serve as a luxury liner. Because her purpose was not combat, Formidable refit mostly consisted of tweaks that would increase survival of VIPs on her board. This made her even more armored than Niji-subclass and reduced her carrier capacity considerably.
Later on, she was modernized with "Her Majesty's Swarm" system that imitated combat structure of Vajra. Within range of the "Nest" and without VIPs on board she could perform combat duty on par with classic carriers. If VIPs are present it would increase chances to survive considerably because of massive support from remote controlled drones.