Chapter 34

The battle's observers saw as the collection of beasts clutched their heads and began screaming. The roars didn't fail to convey how much pain they were experiencing. But the strange part was that the mechs didn't exploit this opening. Instead, they looked just as lost as any of the observers.

Then Bixi's shell stopped bulging in places. It let out the biggest scream as it was torn open by a hand from the inside. From that opening, 'small' figures flew out. The mechs suddenly got brand new signals from those figures. Then those figures landed.

They were striking, to say the least. Their red eyes made them look like they were about to murder anything in their path. Their armor was all spikes and edges that looked sharp enough to rend flesh. They were small deities born form the blood of a fallen monster. In another world, they would be recognized as the Type-00A Takemikazuchi.

And after them, the hands holding open the wound in Bixi's top widened said hole. From it, what appeared as the mother of the smaller mechs came out. A horn cut its way to allow a head to poke out, then it kept going, and going. The neck and torso followed, and the hands revealed what they were attached to.

Bathed in pink, glowing blood was a giant, purple machine that was too big for anything made in this world. Yellow eyes looked upon the world as the monster that had birthed it began evaporating. Since all the attention was centered in the 80-meter-tall giant, no one noticed the relatively small VTOL flying away at full speed.

A large pulse terminated all signals, their last image that of the giant raising its arm towards the ocean as it began to glow.

Inside the Pelican, there was only one thought: "What."

They didn't notice that the pilots were slumped against the chairs, the controls moving by themselves.

Only a few witnessed what happened next. The giant, with its hand extended towards ocean shone in a fluorescent light. In the bay, from nothing, great machines appeared, which then shot beams of light to a few points in space, moving around as something else appeared.

In the history of modern humankind, there was a weapon that would always make someone mind what they were doing. An active deterrent to most enemy activity in the area: The Aircraft supercarrier.

They appeared slowly, but from bow to stern, what would have taken years to make was created in mere seconds. On their hulls, the proud letters SLS Over the Rainbow CVN-65, SLS De Grasse, SLS Blue Ridge CVN-67 and SLS Varyag were printed. Two Nimitz-class, one Kuznetsov-class and one Charles de Gaulle-class, all enlarged and with obvious modifications.

A blast from further in the past materialized right after the supercarriers appeared. Their guns would've caught anyone's attention, their size leaving nothing to the imagination at what damage they would cause. SLS Illinois BB-65 and SLS Kentucky BB-66 floated proudly among their peers. Then another kind of monster soon floated along the amassed fleet. SLS Yamato, SLS Calypso and SLS Hood now would become the anvil to the carrier's TSF hammer.

The moment the world saw them, the internet exploded.

I panted inside the Entry Plug. Despite having so much power at my disposal and with Ark and Zea helping me, we still felt the exhausting growing as we completed a critical piece of our forces.

While we could use the Satellites Mass Translocation System, it would be way to suspicious to appear everywhere we needed to be in a ray of light. But if we could instead move the ships and then teleport inside of them…

I chose to recreate something known. The Nimitz was something that existed in various places in my memories, a particular one was of them unloading TSFs to aid in the defense of Kyoto in '98 in their home universe. The supercarrier also had some history with Evatech, having been what had powered Unit-02 in the OG series.

Of course, they had been overhauled. The Nimitz had been created with TSF's in mind, making them just a little over 20% bigger overall. The Laser CIWS they were outfitted with would melt through anything that came close. The amount of sensor on that thing would be pretty good in a spaceship.

The Battleships… oh boy. In the modern era, they were kinda obsolete. For the Honkai war, they would be essential. 400mm Heavy Railguns, 120mm SA (Shotriser-Attache) Heavy EI (Electromagnetic Induction) Cannons and some 30mm Plasma Railguns for CIWS. The thing was a monster that would be worthy of being refitted for space. The Improved Yamato design instead had 450mm OTH (Over The Horizon) Heavy Railguns, 155mm SL HEI Cannons and various 35mm Plasma Railguns with the addition of the Laser CIWS. We would probably put some nations on hot water once the news spread about them, but hey, there will not be much time for consequences when the war picks up.

We materialized spare parts and some Pelicans and Condors to carry them. The mechs with the most wear would be sent back to Dobbins for maintenance and resupply while escorting the new dropships. I moved the recreated Unit-01 to park it on top of the Rainbow and ejected the entry plug. I saw out of the thing and opened the hatch. The sunlight hit my recently regenerated corneas and I jumped down the Unit.

On the Rainbow's deck, and across the deck of every other ship. Figures stood at attention, some fresh out of the printer beam, some sporting the slight wear of having been in combat for the past hours. Their machines being lowered into the carriers for maintenance. The Blue Ridge was taking in the new Takemikazuchis, the Varyag was taking the Berkuts, and the De Grasse was receiving the Harten Flight Units. I would have to create a carrier specifically for the Eva and then some destroyer escorts, but for now. These would do. I saluted to the gathered figures and they responded in the usual YoRHa way.

"GLORY TO MANKIND!"

"Glory to Mankind! Rest and prepare my dear sons and daughters! For tomorrow, we kill a goddess!"

'Unfortunately' for Yinsen, the pulse didn't manage to hide the battlegroup from the eyes of satellites, and once someone managed to get into some of them, they 'leaked' the new fleet's existence to the masses.

And most of the reactions were expected. Those in the American intelligence community had rather unfortunate accidents at the sight of the fleet parked in the ruins of their submarine bases. So panicked they were that they overlooked the giant kneeling on of the supercarriers until the usual internet forum folk pointed it out. And then the media caught up.

"The appearance of this international fleet both worries and assures people. The events of the last days have taken the life of over 3 million people and twice as many refugees…"

"We are approaching the greatest humanitarian disaster in history, and we had the second worst one just a few days ago in Cuba. Just what is going on?"

"It's the end of times! Repent! Repent for the lord's coming!"

"Don't you see? They are finally making their move! The UN has revealed its weapons and it's preparing an invasion of US soil! Those monsters in the news? a fucking distraction! Supercarriers and fucking battleships? That's what we should focus on! Not some clearly photoshopped photos of robots fighting aliens…"

"Look at the numbers, some those ships shouldn't exist. We have nothing like that in our registry and just who the hell uses battleship in this century? There is something truly fishy here and I don't mean the diner we had before the show…"

"Wait, since when did the French and Russians laid another carrier that wasn't over a century old?"

After printing yet another Carrier, this one exclusive for the Eva unit and a dozen Sejong the Great-class destroyers (for full automation) and Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates, I boarded another pelican and headed back to Dobbins. Half of the Forces stayed with the fleet and the other half was basically escorting me. The Avengers and Thunderbolts were not meant for Carrier use and the Black Widows were the freshest out of all machines. The carriers were monsters that would have taken us months to fully print even with the facilities in Arsenal City. They had come out half full, but I hadn't paid attention to what kind of TSF's they had on their bays, focusing more on the weapon systems.

The landing was thankfully smooth, but from Himeko's expression, the reception wouldn't be.

Crap.

"Yinsen, just what the hell happened?" The moment I jumped out she came close and grabbed my arm.

"What do you mean, exactly?" I have to admit… she looked very hot, even if her anger was aimed at me. She didn't like my cheek.

"Inside the monster, one minute you're grinning and the next we're in the bird and you have that… that…" her hand moved trying to convey what words failed to.

"Monster?" I helpfully supplied.

"Monster! Wait, is that one of your…" her voice lowered at a pitiful attempt to appear non-conspicuous.

"Let answer your first question. In order, we found the Core of Logic, the activation knocked you guys out, so the girls pulled you back into the Pelican, I activated the Core to create one of those projects that never left the paper phase to break us out and kill Bixi once and for all. Then I used the core to fuel the Eva Unit and some of our people came to get us out. Then reinforcements arrived." I twisted the truth just a little.

"Really." She didn't look convinced,

"Yup."

"You're shitting me."

"I'm not into that, and neither should you. It's not hygienic…"

"You would deserve the couch for doing even half of that…" She said that in an exasperated tone but I could see the small smile she was now sporting.

"Not yet, dear. Not yet. At least let's go on a date first…" And I meant it… there is something about getting to know someone like that….

"You might want to check when later is going to be cause last I heard, the brass isn't happy with you at all." She punched my shoulder and turned to go back into the hangars, hips swaying all the time.

…I might have to invest into something for mental fatigue… The body is willing but the spirit…

Himeko wasn't kidding, the brass looked torn between shitting themselves or having a stroke.

"Just who are you?" One of the Generals lookd this close to the latter.

"I already said, Special Task Force Steel Locust."

"Where did you get those ships? Who built them?"

"Well, some of those had been mothballed and other had been slated to be scrapped. We got them mostly as pity donations and brought them back to life…"

"So many? Who would give away so many…?"

"Hey, I'm no budget man but even getting a little cash for something you want to throw out is nice."

"But who the hell gives away battleships?"

"No one wants them, and some just wanted to keep their homes alive for a little longer."

…

Renée came and saved me from more grilling from the Brass, as it wasn't a proper interrogation, nor I was directly under their command. I had to explain that while the ships looked impressive most of them had been sailing in autopilot and most of the crew were the mech pilots and a few infantry squads, who were barely any 'older' than my own forces at Dobbins.
That managed to assail some of their worries, but now they were going to tray and track where the ships came from.

Meanwhile I had to ready what I had for the next assault.

This time I would take on the Herrscher herself.

Up above in earth's orbit, a silver machine disconnected from it's 'womb'. The tethers once anchoring it to the SL satellite that created it were broken once the upload was complete. This scene repeated itself in the other three SL satellites orbiting Earth.

The network felt their birth and in cyberspace, three new intelligences appeared, made to command the new Longinus-class Strategic Support Satellites. They searched through the memories in the network and chose appropriate avatars to present themselves to the Cores that commissioned their creation.

The three Longinus stood ready to meet their creators as their physical platforms were being constructed. Their names? Pnemua, Mythra and Pyra.