19.6.2014
In approximately two hours, the entire world will now know that there exist a group of superhumans known as "ship girls" and the technology that was created to make their existence possible.
I say this half-jokingly, but I rather that I need not say this at all. The Abyssal attack on the Netherlands has been made as public as terrorist attacks like this can be made, and all of Europe has now been awoken to the Abyssal threat. But the Abyssal threat has now brought the ship girls to the light as well, as unauthorized news helicopters from Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands themselves had all swarmed the airspace of the battle as our joint fleet of British and German fleet personnel defeated the Abyssal fleet, providing perfect coverage and acquiring enough footage before our air support arrived to chase them away to prove that, without a doubt, there now walk (and sail) two kinds of humanoid beings that the world had never before seen.
Indeed, the news channels are so inundated with repeating video footage of the battle off the Dutch coast that I have not even bothered turning on any television sets today. Why would I, when all I must do to receive my news fix for the day is to simply step outside of my office in the Reichstag and listen, just for a moment, to the ambience of the hallway, where there is bound to be at least one flat-screen monitor broadcasting yet another fascinated or terrified news caster shouting something else unintelligible about aliens and the confirmation of extraterrestrial life forms. I can already tell that the next few weeks immediately following the attack on the Netherlands will be very, very tiring.
But the one person I pity the most is my own husband. Following the attack on the Netherlands, when the media gave unforgiving evidence that it was indeed the German Air Force whose jets had arrived to secure the scene. This was also further exacerbated by the fact that one of our generals who was present at our emergency meeting yesterday, in which we monitored the progress of the battle, had been stopped and interrogated as he was leaving the Reichstag and let loose the implication that Germany was in fact in possession of these so-called "ship girls", though he was merely only stating what he had heard. So now all morning today Gernot has had to attend an emergency press meeting in which droves upon droves of thirsty journalists and other media personnel have quite literally stormed the Reichstag in order to ask my husband even just one question. I, being more knowledgeable about our own girls, offered to take his place, but Gernot said that he would not have me, his wife, go through such a thing. He said that I should rather conserve my energy to take care of our daughter.
I do appreciate his consideration, but sometimes I do wish my husband would give himself some breathing room.
But I do not exaggerate when I say that the news of the so-called "discovery" of the Abyssals and the ship girls is spreading across the whole world like wildfire. I know this because I have received no less than one hundred and sixty-three phone calls from fellow European political entities calling in to confirm that Germany was in fact in possession of these strange new weapons of war. Yes, I counted them. And yes, all of these calls contained a very similar and quite prophetic message: why was Germany hiding the fact that they possessed these seemingly terrifying new weapons and technology? Of course, I did not deny or confirm any of these allegations, but I know that I do not have to say anything for the rest of the world to soon find out, sooner or later, that Germany does indeed possess ship girls. Such was the urgency in the voices of my counterparts throughout the rest of continental Europe that one would have believed the ship girls the new world-ending military technology, similar to how the nuclear bomb and atomic technology were treated in the days of the Cold War.
Indeed, the Abyssal terrorist attack on the Netherlands has not only plunged the country into an emergency state of crisis but also the political theatre of the entire European continent, including Great Britain. I am a seasoned politician, and I know how my peers in the other countries of the European Union will think. And I know that they will view our military budget expansion bills as evidence that Germany was in fact secretly building up a clandestine fleet of naval personnel in order to sway the military hegemony of the European Union countries into Germany's favor; the fact that there is still some World War II stigma associated with our country when military matters are involved does not help this. In fact, I should expect this same stigma to grow worse when the names of our German ship girls are discovered and projected to the rest of the world, and I definitely will not have enough to hear on this matter for the weeks to come.
This is certainly no time to be a politician.
Or perhaps that statement was self-evident...
In the wake of the Dutch terrorist attack, I received a call from Sir Sinclair, thankfully. It was a much needed respite from all the calls from every other European head of government and their mothers. He, too, had been going through a very similar ordeal, but on top of answering many an angry phone call, he also was subjected to emergency press meetings like my husband was. I sent him my condolences over the phone, which he gladly received with a bit of a tired chuckle.
We discussed for a few hours what this event would mean for the two of our nations. At the time of our phone call, Gernot entered my office, very haggard and exhausted, and informed me that he had no choice but to admit that Germany was in fact in possession of a small number of ship girls, that the evidence provided by the media was too overwhelming to deny. He had spared the British fleet by declining to comment on the media's questions of possible British personnel, for the media coverage depicted the British ship girls, several of whom had British naval ensign designs on their uniforms or weapons, but Sir Sinclair informed me that he had already revealed the existence of the British fleet as well, so there were no secrets to be kept there. We know now that the rest of the world is well aware (or soon to be well aware) of our possessions of ship girls, so it appears that we as nations have no choice but to cooperate with each other in order to defend our possessions, for there will surely be calls from other European nations for us to deactivate our fleets.
This also calls into question a few other areas of debate: how ought we act when soon, more questions come flooding in regarding the origins of our fleets and our methods of construction and/or acquisition? Naturally, sooner or later, the American Seal Team Six team must become involved. They are the proper owners and holders of the fleet personnel copyrights and patents, whatever they use. Is it our place to reveal to the world, when questioned, that our ship girls were not our own original creations? If we were to word our response as such, what would the rest of the world infer? That perhaps there exists another powerful entity or organization that has enough power and resources to create a world-altering technology? Then that would seem as though there is another malicious entity that exists in the world that has enough influence to bring Britain and Germany, two of the most influential nations in Europe already, under their wing, which is not the case at all, unless this malicious entity can be thought to be the A.A.H.W. that Seal Team Six has warned us about. What would they want us to do? Surely they must have heard of the Netherlands attack by now, even though we have not heard from them or attempted to contact them. Sir Sinclair made a point to ask me this, whether or not we had made contact with the American team in regards to what we ought to do, for these were their inventions at were at stake. I told him that it may be better to simply wait for their reply. They are Americans; they will not let an incident like this go unanswered.
The last area of discussion I talked about with Sir Sinclair was the Japan question. Now that our fleets have been discovered, what will be the response of the Japanese government? For we both know that the largest fleet of ship personnel belongs to none other than Japan, but because the Netherlands attack and the previous Hamburg Massacre have drawn all of the political and media attention to the center of Europe, nobody else is looking at Japan. Sir Sinclair grimly observed that in light of Japan's quiet rising militarism and the recent conversion of their government towards rightist government and military policies, this could be an opportunity for them to exert their own power in the Asian hemisphere. Because no one seems to be accusing Japan of harboring any such fleet of their own, they could be saving their own fleet until the perfect opportunity arises, when the reveal of their own ship girls can effect the most amount of influence...or damage, depending on what they do with them. Or perhaps they, too, once they receive word of the Abyssal attack on the Netherlands (which they should know by now, if they are such a proper government), may start feeling pressure and rush to further their own political agenda before their own fleet is revealed?
With these questions heavy on my mind, I returned home with my husband. Gernot had called Khal, who fortunately was available, and asked him to look after our daughter for the day, offering to pay him a generous sum for his troubles (as a doctor, Khal must have lost a lot of money today closing his office to help us), but Khal more generously refused. "Caring for the daughter of the leaders of my nation is perhaps the most patriotism I can demonstrate for my country," he stated quite grandly. Upon seeing him off, I went to my room and contacted the girls in Britain, and Graf Zeppelin, our newest carrier addition to the fleet, to my surprise, answered it.
She is a most well-conducted girl, was my first impression. Despite having bandages covering most of her upper body and her left eye, she acted as professional as any properly trained German soldier would act. No extra details, no miscellaneous information or sidetracking. I am now guilty of developing a preference for a ship girl, which I have managed to refrain from doing with everyone else, and the preference is being pulled towards Graf Zeppelin. I must properly apologize to the others when they return.
Graf informed me that they (the German ship girls) were now in stable condition and would repair their damages hastily in order to be ready to respond to another possible Abyssal threat, should it manifest itself. I asked her if the ship girls, both them and their British comrades, were aware of the fact that the world now knows about their existence, and Graf replied no. They had not been informed, understandably enough; they cannot be given any distractions to their work if there should be another Abyssal attack in the near future. Publicity, attention, media coverage - everything comes second to their intended duties as fleet personnel. In any case, though, I did ask Graf to inform the others that their lives were no longer to be guarded by the secretive walls of the Wunderwaffe program; the world would now be watching.
Gernot has just asked me if he ought to give Seal Team Six a call, but I decided against it. We have heard and talked enough today. There is only so much a human mind can handle, no matter how great its status.