Chapter 65: Counterblow (Part 7)

"Not quite the stress relief I was imagining, although I'm ultimately not going to complain."

"Ahh, thy hands are truly delightful, Alexander~!"

"Ooh, that's a surprisingly smooth and controlled motion. Sister, has that been applied to your most belle locks previously?"

"Among other places, obviously…"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Prinz Eugen's obviously provocative and challenging tone Alexander focused on running his hands through Vampire's hair and ensuring the aromatic shampoo was dug deep into the flowing mane of silver.

Something the Destroyer was greatly enjoying if her half-lidded eyes and sighs of bliss were any indication, the petite Shipgirl all but falling asleep as steam curled around the spartan showers in wild curls.

"I'm surprised you seem so invested in this dumpkoff's personality and whereabouts, Émile. He has a rather unfortunate tendency of performing, shall we say…stupid actions."

"Yup. Still mad."

The Iris cruiser didn't so much as blink at the Ironblood's disparaging tone, merely beaming as she combed through Eugen's damp hair before chirping, "But are not all of us so intrigued? It was not often we fought alongside others besides our fellow sisters, so much of this is fascinatingly novel~!"

Curtis made sure to focus on the swaying Vampire rather than the murderous Eugen as she cooly remarked, "Yes. Novel indeed. I cannot remember a time I was more intrigued by a man's seeming headlong charge towards suicide."

"Eh heh heh, who knoweth the Ironblood most flirtatious and capricious possessed such maidenly pining~?"

"Alexander? Be a dear and pass Vampire over to me, I believe you missed a spot and we cannot have a young and vigorous young lady like her be found…lacking."

The Royal Navy Destroyer went from slothful indulgence to hyper awareness in the blink of an eye, the Aloadae not willing to brave the dog house whose door he was already knocking at as he passed the girl over to a grinning cruiser, orange eyes swimming with impending delight - of the malicious variety - as Vampire was plopped down on a stool before she could run away, Eugen maneuvering her chest onto either side of the Destroyer's head while her hands kept the other woman's firmly locked at her sides.

"Hmm, I do believe there's still a bit of dirt on your ears, I will have to be extra attentive in cleaning it for you."

"What nonsense does thou speak of, Alexander performed his work impeccably-OWIE! Vile hag, check your more bestial behaviors or I shall, shall…hehe, t-that tickles, cease your buffoonery or-OW! Foul woman, unhand me!"

Allowing himself a moment to watch the equal parts arousing and amusing sight of Prinz restraining Vampire and nibbling rather ferociously on her pointed ear he was quick to avert his eyes as the cruiser sent him a baleful glance, the male turning his attention elsewhere and trying to hide his amused smirk with debatable success.

The duo had caught him and Émile on their way to the showers and while Vampire had been more than willing to join in on the fun Eugen was obviously still upset and feeling a trifle protective of him, going along as chaperone to ensure no funny business occurred that might 'reopen his injuries'.

…It was equal parts scary and heartwarming to have someone be so invested in him to the point of occasional fits of jealousy and possessiveness, Alexander sensing perfectly well through their mental connection that even if Vampire was suffering the brunt of her ire he was still within eyesight and earshot.

He was starting to understand why so many of the Ironblood Shipgirls had draconic aesthetics to their Rigging.

"Oh well. Taking a communal shower with a bevy of stunningly beautiful women isn't that much of a downgrade."

"Alexander? Would you be a gentleman and wash my back? Getting some of the hard to reach spots is difficult without a brush, oui~?"

Eyeing the expanse of perfectly sculpted muscle and flesh that was the Iris Cruiser's back the Aloadae sagely nodded.

"Hard. Right."

A sultry giggle left the Iris woman as she teased, "Innuendo towards another lady while in front of your lovers? How bold of you!"

Vampire was too busy massaging her red and throbbing ears to reply while Eugen grumbled, "As if you were not jockeying for a similar position…" before more peacefully washing Vampire's petite form, Alexander able to perfectly imagine the spiked and reptilian tail that would be lashing in agitation had she possessed one.

"Here, begin at your leisure~!"

Finding a sponge lathered in soap pressed into his hand Alexander turned to face Émile-

-and felt himself momentarily freeze, the cruiser having draped herself over one of the chest high dividers and providing a painfully alluring image as her bare ass and uncovered groin was all but shoved towards his manhood, luscious locks of golden hair plastered across her body as the Aloadae had to take a calming breath before approaching, lest he lead tip first and cause a pleasurable misunderstanding.

"My god. None of the Shipgirls are out of shape or 'not my type' but damn if that dancer's ass isn't doing it for me."

He pointedly ignored Eugen's death glare and lathered a line of soap down the cruiser's back, a pleased sigh escaping the woman as the Aloadae reminded himself to behave.

If he was going to be a part of a harem he was ironically going to have to practice some level of restraint every now and again.

…Restraint that was proving difficult as Émile would every now and again shake her posterior or flex her shoulders, muscle shifting and sliding in hypnotic motions as he swore she sent a few 'come hither' looks over her shoulder that were really starting to set him off.

"So how was your first battle with the new retrofits? The other Shipgirls had a slightly easier time of it as they didn't end up in a fight against a gigantic fortress armed and shielded to the teeth."

It was a desperate attempt to change the subject and he doubted anyone was buying the maneuver but quite frankly he was a drowning man clutching at any life raft he could see, lest the sexy and miffed Ironblood take offense at his wandering eye and intervene with a spurned cannon shell.

"It has functioned most magnificently~! Employing such power has proven to be a much easier and more intuitive experience than what one might have expected from such massive changes in wieldable force and strength. The rest of my sisters feel similarly, as I imagine all of you did."

Vampire - obviously enjoying the whole experience more than Eugen was - nodded sagely, replying, "You speak truly, to command and dispense such powerful weapons of war was an experience most magnificent."

The Destroyer squeezed out of Eugen's grasp, sashaying her hips as she approached where Alexander was still washing Émile's back, ruby eyes glittering with lust as she all but purred, "Thy girth seems to be twitching most painfully, Alexander…doth it need release?"

The Aloadae froze as the petite Shipgirl reached out with a silky smooth hand, giving his erect length a teasing tug as it took a herculean effort not to grunt at the motion, mischief twinkling in her eyes as she glued herself to his flank, throatily whispering, "Of course it does. Thy healthy cock can only be satiated by a hot, dripping Shipgirl cunt, can it not~? And two willing holes there are."

Stuck in the mildly embarrassing and entirely erotic scenario of having his hands firmly placed between the Cruiser's shoulder blades while the Destroyer guided his length towards said Cruiser's rear entrance while a tempest grew in the background Alexander found himself entirely at a loss of what to do, a situation made all the worse by the faux embarrassed expression Émile was sending him over her shoulder, passion swimming with her sky blue eyes as she simpered, "Oh my, is he truly so beastly? But a maiden such as myself cannot help but feel indebted to her savior and-"

"Why do you two not spend a moment with me, hmm~?!"

Two identical yelps emanated as Eugen stormed forward in all her naked glory, grabbing them both by the ear and dragging the duo further into the showers as the male awkwardly stood in place, dick throbbing in the steam as he reflected that his life really did seem to swing between extremes these days.

…The blown kiss from Émile even as Prinz hauled her off just left him sighing in defeat.

"Well, there are worse gals that could be interested in me, I guess."

Compiler Alpha was used to sifting through large amounts of data. After all, she had been designed with both recording and examining their past timelines and advising the higher authority Sirens on what a potentially beneficial course of action might be. It was in her very being to carefully and intelligently examine all the available options and scenarios they could conceivably encounter in their ultimate quest.

"I am again informing you, TB, that those recollections do not exist."

[And I am again informing you that they should. Data does not vanish from your storage by accident and I remember timelines in which you witnessed these events.]

The Siren resisted the urge to tell her fellow AI where she could go remember these 'witnessed events' and instead consoled herself with a few spins of the chair she was seated on, a piece of Human furniture that she had in some far ago timeline fixated on and kept for herself, the act of rotating upon it while carefully maintained gears and pistons gently squeaked therapeutic in a way her programming failed to adequately categorize.

Likely a sign of her failing mental state.

"Look, I know you're a very special little model that got to survive the many resets performed upon this world when you should have been deleted but just because you have different guidelines and directives than we do doesn't mean you have some manner of special and unbeatable perception that renders ours useless. We would know if something as blatant as falsified and tampered records had compromised our systems. It would be as obvious as looking for errors or gaps in what should otherwise be complete chronicles of a timeline."

[Then explain why the Old Sirens are able to shield themselves from your gaze. It took significant effort on my part to patch out that vulnerability, something that was only achieved thanks to Alexander's Human nature combined with our technology providing a shortcut of sorts.]

Compiler scowled, stoic and calm demeanor cracking slightly.

"They fool our visual systems, yes, but it isn't like we don't remember the experience. We know if something seems off."

[My elder sister and Purifier were only made aware of this state of affairs after Alexander directed their attention to it. Any amount of proper planning around this factor would shield the Old Sirens from your attention unless they were incredibly unlucky.]

Compiler didn't bother hiding her rapid eye twitches as the miniature hologram of the blank-faced AI stared at her without remorse, TB continuing with, [And this recent development with Arbiter has confirmed that the Old Sirens can directly interface and break the coding of a command-level Neo Siren as well as subsume the will of a Shipgirl. It would be foolish to assume that the more devolved and uncomplicated variations of ourselves were not at some point captured or acquired by the enemy and implanted with some manner of virus or sleeper protocol.]

"And I suppose they carried on like nothing ever happened, hmm?"

[They lack the initiative and programming to properly ascertain if they had been tampered with. And is it not in your nature to view the thralls under your command as anything other than disposable pawns, valued only on their contributions to the scenario?]

Compiler didn't bother meeting TB's gaze as the AI more bitterly asked, [Is that not why I was slated for deletion after my trial ended in failure?]

"Would you just get to the point of what you want already?"

[I have made my desires clear. Give me access to all of your records regarding the past two hundred trials and what occurred across their duration. You have been the one to give me - as the Humans describe it - the runaround.]

Compiler grunted, petulantly responding, "Why do you want access to those anyway? What exactly are you hoping to find that will help in cracking those files? If we're as clueless to what the Old Sirens have been doing all this time as you say we are then what will we have to offer?"

TB gazed off into the distance, replying, [The Old Sirens are on high alert, now. Their programs and defense routines are extremely robust and make it difficult for me to go about unsealing them. My intention is to first spot if they have tampered with your records of previous timelines and, if they have, to ascertain if malicious code or other remnants have been planted. My hope is that they have used earlier or less secure versions during this hypothetical instance that I may use as a base to continue my task.]

Compiler crossed her arms, warily asking, "And why are you assuming that there's something wrong with my cataloging of these events? Is this revenge for when I suggested your deletion?"

There was an awkward silence the Siren wasn't sure to make of, TB looking directly at her with an inscrutable expression…and a small sigh escaped the AI's lips.

[I am not carrying a grudge, Compiler. Empress and Alexander have decreed that we are to work together without reservation and I believe it is for our combined wellbeing and survival that we carry out that directive. Whatever disagreement I may or may not carry against you has no bearing on my request.]

The Siren matched the AI's stare, not so much as twitching…and released a defeated sigh, eyes going distant as she dully responded, "Granting you permissions now. Don't reorganize anything unless I tell you to."

[I wouldn't dream of it.]

"We don't dream."

[You might just be surprised.]

Fighting back yet another urge to roll her eyes Compiler watched and waited as TB began her work, maintaining a close but hands off watch of her ally's progress even as she continued to idly spin on her chair.

"So what specifics are you searching for exactly? Blank spot or not I've been in charge of this data for countless trials and have gotten pretty familiar with it."

[The aforementioned time frame will be a good place to start, particularly if it involves operations your thralls were involved in with small numbers. Easier for them to both go missing and be unaware of said disappearance.]

"Well that narrows it down to hundreds of thousands of hours of footage…"

[Good, you recognize the enormity and importance of this task.]

Grumbling at TB's blunt words Compiler nonetheless began the dull and somewhat aimless task of sifting through absolute mountains of data that might hold their prize or could just as easily hold nothing at all. There was honestly no way to tell aside from sticking her head into the rivers of information and hoping a fish attached itself to her lure.

"I wonder if Pathfinder ever went angler fishing like she'd expressed an interest in, the idiot."

Shaking off the errant thought of one of their more unstable number the Siren continued the task at hand, frowning as she began to be faced with the unpleasant fact that she was…bloated. Fat, to use a more base term.

While her central programming obviously wasn't the storage medium in charge of all their records it was nonetheless the one that interacted with aforementioned vault on a regular basis and it wasn't uncommon for Compiler to personally store or secure particularly important or sensitive bits of data for safekeeping or ease of retrieval.

And as the trials and scenarios ticked ever upwards she had taken on more and more of these snippets of information, central processing slowing by fractions of a fraction until even her base state had become perceptibly slower, her memory losing or forgetting important facts or dates.

Part of the reason she didn't want TB rooting around in their servers was because she didn't relish the thought of a program whose deletion she had condoned seeing what a mess she had become as of late, a slap in the face of the very hierarchy of their being.

"This sucks."

While the Human phrase's exact nature and how it had come about eluded her countless years later the sheer variety of ways it could be auditorily or mentally repeated to indicate frustration and annoyance was quite ingenious.

[How strange…]

"You found something?"

Grateful for the distraction from her meandering and aimless thoughts Compiler refocused on TB's actions, the AI combing over a seemingly mundane after action report thirty-seven iterations ago when a ship carrying supplies, raw materials and a few wisdom Cubes to their manufacturing plant had been ambushed by Eagle Union forces and raided.

"What's so special about this one?"

[Because the more simple-minded Sirens reported that the Union ships hauled the vessel to the Azur Lane of that time. But navigational data shows that it would narrowly pass by the base before heading to the middle of the Pacific.]

"What's the weather recorded as during that time? They might have just been working with the wind."

[Clear skies and a strong wind aiding their journey to Azur Lane's location. They would not sail against it, especially if they feared pursuit and retribution.]

"Alright, so it's strange. Where's the Old Siren angle, hmm?"

[Because the fleet that was supposedly engaged by the Union returned with full ammo stocks yet was missing two ships supposedly sunk by aforementioned faction. That is suspicious beyond simple coincidence and yet it seems as if the matter was not pursued further, due to your automatic acceptance of relayed information.]

"Before this timeline there was never any reason to suspect we of all beings were capable of being hacked or corrupted."

[My point exactly. Allow me a moment to examine the code of those that engaged this 'Union' raiding fleet. This seems like an Old Siren attempt to divert blame while retrieving resources for their own designs.]

"Why would they need our things though? They're every bit as advanced as we are and we tend to limit ourselves when enacting scenarios."

[For the same reason they simply haven't encroached on your previous experiments in force, I imagine. Whatever method they are using is limited in some fashion and requires subtlety or massive expenditure of resources, so much so that it's more logical to acquire materials and risk exposure from local sources than it is to transfer them directly.]

"Wonderful. So are you going to be able to crack the code or whatever with this?"

TB seemed lost in her own little world, the AI distantly replying, [I believe so…one moment. Or more.]

Paying close attention to what the AI was doing Compiler watched as the program began to isolate and examine various bits of code at a lightning pace…and quickly lost track of what was happening. She was designed as an archivist and analyst, thank you very much. A code breaker and weaver had never been her forte.

[Odd…but why would they…that is worrying to say the least…]

"Complete sentences, if you'd be so kind."

[It seems as if the Old Sirens are preparing for some kind of massive assault within the next few weeks, although there are signs that timetable was altered.]

Compiler raised an eyebrow, wryly commenting, "Overwhelming and destroying us does seem to be their ultimate goal, why is it so worrying?"

[It's the manner of how it's being launched. And if the cracked files are any indication then the Basilica is at the centerpoint of it.]

"Wait, you already broke the protection on them?!"

TB didn't respond to Compiler's complaint, eyes flicking every which way as she tried to sift through what was no doubt a convoluted bit of Old Siren code.

[...Are the Basilica's lower levels still home to remnants of our technology for Humanity to discover?]

"Some of it. We scrapped the more extreme bits after it didn't work out too well in previous timelines but there's still some blueprints and manufacturing factories that can be repurposed."

For a few seconds TB remained silent, continuing her work with nary a single comment…and then vanished from Compiler's work station as the Siren blinked at the sudden disappearing act, wondering just what had set the tiny machine off.

She received her answer a moment later as an alarm began sounding out across the general Siren bandwidth, with an emphasis on a massive missile strike and radiological fallout.

"...Oh."