20.6.2014
Upon arriving at the Reichstag, the entire government building was surrounded by press and media crews. Never in all of the years Gernot and I have been involved in politics had we seen the Reichstag so...besieged by such throngs of people. Never mind the fact that they were all in some way associated with the media and were there to ask us annoyingly infinite amounts of questions, it was just such a stunning sight to see that Gernot asked me if today might be a good day to use one of our paid leave days that we have yet to use ever since Gernot took office as Chancellor.
Because Gernot had urgent matters to attend to, and because he had been the one to confront the press yesterday in the emergency press meetings, I took my turn in dealing with the media and stayed behind to answer what questions I could before my patience ran out. So surrounded by the local Reichstag security and with countless numbers of eager microphones pointed in my direction, I gave what comments I could. The questions were more or less what I had expected the press to ask: Was this "Abyssal" threat a new threat that had just sprung up recently, or did the governments of Europe already know and were trying to hide it all this time? What exactly were these Abyssals, and what were these "ship girls" that seemed to be the hot topic since yesterday? Were these Abyssals aliens? What is their agenda? What is our agenda in dealing with this terrorist threat? Who would be held responsible, if there was someone controlling the Abyssals? Just how large was our force of "ship girls" or "naval personnel"? And was this Abyssal attack somehow related to the recent Hanover Massacre? But what surprised me quite a bit was the urgency and the overall theme of the questions I received. Everyone seemed to want to know:
Was the Abyssal attack the signal of a new armed conflict? If it was, does it have a chance to develop into a fully-fledged war?
Considering the recent political problems between Russia and Ukraine, this hardly comes as a surprise. Such problems had only been very recently resolved, albeit in a tense agreement, if one could even call it that. It was a conflict in which violence on the scale of a full-size war was entirely possible to break out, and European countries looking on sighed a breath of relief once the two countries were able to come to a truce...for the time being. If there is one thing I claim to know for sure about this continent, it is that the vast majority of the countries here do not want war. Peace has been treating us very well, almost spoiling us. War will only serve to plunge the efforts of the past decades into irrelevancy, should it occur. There are a few countries I know who may very well appreciate a war, no matter what the size, but I suppose that is why no one listens to them.
In response to the press, I gave them the usual answers a good politician must give in situations such as this, the vaguest answers that yet still instill hope and confidence, and upon giving those comments, I retreated with the help of security into the Reichstag to finally begin my work for the day. I spent a few minutes in my office upon arriving there sitting in my chair and catching my breath. I wonder how it is that my older colleagues have the energy to perform this career day in, day out.
Reports indicate that the knowledge of the Abyssals and the ship girls are now officially widespread; it is impossible to convince the people of Europe that these entities are made up fabrications. There are some who are calling this a government conspiracy of some description, others who call this a terrorist attack (which is most likely the case), and still others who still do not believe that Abyssals and ship girls exist, although they are a particular minority. Truth be told, I think that the faster we officially announce to the country about the existence of our small fleet of ship girls, the better. In the face of possible Abyssal terrorist attacks in the future, the people will be demanding to know why the government, we, are not taking steps to prevent these kinds of attacks to protect them. I foresee the possibility of complications arising from this political maneuver of revealing our own fleet to the public eye, but politics is all about choosing the lesser of two evils, to discern which choice has more manageable consequences than the other - and I cannot fathom keeping our fleet a secret to be the more logical choice. Perhaps my reasoning somewhere may be mistaken, but that is why I have my husband to consult me.
So after our work and taking our lunch break, Gernot came to my office to discuss this matter with me in private. I explained my reasoning to him in regards to announcing the existence of our fleet to the press. Simply put, this was not something we could afford to keep secret. The Abyssal attack, the one that flooded the Netherlands, are sure to continue, and we need to have a way to stop them effectively while at the same time letting the people of Europe know that there was indeed a way to defeat them before they can inflict catastrophic damage, as what has happened two days ago. Of course, that wasn't to say we were going to turn our fleet personnel into something of war heroes. We would simply let the knowledge of our fleet go public, but we would refrain from giving specific information about them. Gernot pointed out that by doing this, we would essentially be feeding our enemies the same information, but again, I repeated to him that we would not leak sensitive data. All we would do is let the public know that Germany and England had a way to deal with the Abyssals, and that they would handle the situation. Raising awareness and leaking information are two very different things.
Eventually, I was able to convince Gernot to agree with me, and we planned a press conference tomorrow in which we would announce this. Once we had settled on this agreement, Gernot returned to his office to continue his work while I contacted Sir Sinclair of England to inform him of our intentions. While Sir Sinclair was mostly in agreement with our reasoning, he did object to our press conference that we will hold tomorrow, calling it "hasty" and "unnecessary". According to Sir Sinclair, it would be most unwise to reveal these news to the world when our fleets were still in joint operation and training. He advised that we should at least wait until the girls return from their training at the Rosyth Dockyards next week, since it has already been a week. The Italian ship girls should have returned to their home in Rome by now, given the time, and I pray that their short week of training and participation in battle have given them the live combat experience they needed. But until our own girls return home, Sir Sinclair recommended that we wait. It would be better to at least give such an announcement when we had the presence of our fleet with us in Germany to begin with anyway, in the situation that an attack comes immediately following the announcement. Because we do not know who our true enemies are, either the Abyssals or perhaps an overarching organization controlling them, we do not have any knowledge of their information-gathering capabilities. Because our press conference will likely be televised (I could choose not to have it televised if we so desire), the announcement will be broadcast immediately, and if any enemy happens to see it and decide to retaliate, it would be best if our fleet was on stand by to prevent that retaliation.
Myself convinced by Sir Sinclair, I paged my husband and informed him of my conversation with the Englishman. Gernot was quite relieved that Sir Sinclair was able to convince me otherwise - he, too, stated that he was not very comfortable with my intention of making this announcement so soon, and he heartily agreed with Sir Sinclair's point of having our fleet back at home first before making any such huge announcement. So as of now, our press conference to reveal the existence of our naval personnel fleet is to be delayed until further notice, or least until our fleet returns home to Berlin.
Then, I received a phone call from Seal Team Six, from Herr Big. A strange name, but apparently it is his callsign. He had some big news to share.
By far the most surprising piece of information was the fact that he and his team in Seal Team Six were preparing to ship over a small team of ship girls from Japan. Apparently, if he is to be believed, a tiny fleet of three destroyers from the Japanese mainland had been tasked to traverse across the whole Pacific Ocean to reach their base in Southern California on the West Coast to reach them and make contact with them, because conventional methods of communication had been cut off between Japan and the United States, effectively severing the ties the development team had with their own Japanese creations. They had carried out this mission because several of their kind had been sunk in that recent attack on the Yokosuka Naval Yards, and because the Japanese had foolishly seized control of the Moebius Four Platoon without first being advised on how to maintain them, those three destroyers were to negotiate with Seal Team Six to either somehow repair their casualties or reveal their reconstruction methods. Understandably, Seal Team Six seemed willing to do neither. And instead of letting those ship girls return, Herr Big stated that they were to deploy to Europe to assist with the Abyssal contingency here, along with two additional ship girls they were in the middle of reconstructing to replace the ones who had sunk at the naval yard attack. These Japanese ship girls would deploy directly to our control and would act as a direct unit of our armed forces, as well as maintain connections with the other naval personnel fleets in Britain and Italy.
Even more surprising was Herr Big's clear intention of giving these ship girls who were going to deploy to our control rank and uniform. One of these ship girls we will expect under our command soon, whose name is Samidare (a strange name indeed), apparently has been granted a real rank in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, the modern Japanese navy, though she is apparently but a lowly lieutenant. But even despite this relatively low officer's rank, Herr Big said to me that she now wields military authority over all ship girls, for she is to be their direct superior. The fact that she is only a destroyer concerns me: if this Samidare were a battleship or a carrier, then I would admittedly be more open to the notion that she is to be the direct superior to the rest of her kind in the field, but upon voicing this concern, Herr Big stated that Samidare was one of the original five ship girls who had first been deployed to the naval base in Okinawa, underneath the command of the young American Admiral whom they had sent to train them. Despite her status as a destroyer, she has been fighting for a longer time than most other naval personnel, particularly our own, and is very well experienced in combat. And it would not be just her alone who would hold rank: another ship girl in this small fleet, named Shigure (again, such a strange name), would also be given rank and uniform and be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant as well.
Finally, they gave word that they had successfully submitted the schematics for two new Italian naval personnel, those by the names of Zara and Pola. The Italian fleet could expect to receive them in the near future as a bolster against possible Abyssal attacks in the future.
On that note, Herr Big advised me to look for another call from either him or someone else on his team in regards to the finalization of their auxiliary fleet's deployment to our command sometime tomorrow around the same time and ended the conversation.
There is a glaring question that I have in mind that I wished to ask, but I suppose I will ask it tomorrow, when that phone call arrives.