NEW SHIP DESIGNS PROPOSED BY THE NAVY! CREWED, NOT SHESHIPS!
An official spokesperson for the navy has announced that, in accordance with the EMPIRE'S unprecedented need for SHIPS in greater QUANTITY and QUALITY than ever before, the latest naval buildout plan will be revised to include the Empire's first ever AIRCRAFT CARRIER!
While various ships have been CONVERTED to carry a small number of planes before and during THE WAR, the spokesperson has said those designs are hopelessly outdated compared to the MODERN TECHNOLOGY the Empire finds itself surrounded and challenged by in the new world, and will be building these from the GROUND UP.
As always, we URGE our readers to LOOK at the detailed schematics and explanations for the EMPIRE'S newly created SHESHIPS, located in the BACK HALF of this paper. Remember, it is your DUTY to study them and hold in your mind the stories of these SHIPS and the BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN that served aboard them.
Note: Some possible designs and names for the abortive attempt at a carrier conversion will be included before them as well.
WARNING! THIS NEWSPAPER IS FOR THE CONSUMPTION OF IMPERIAL EYES-ONLY. DO NOT PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION TO NON-IMPERIAL CITIZENS UNDER THE CHARGE OF TREASON.
-OxOxO-
Johan Schmidtson was having one of the worst days of his career as an up-and-coming switchboard operator. Everything had been smooth sailing after getting this job midway into the war, especially considering his situation.
He flinched at the ringing that rattled through his head. Ordinarily, such a sound was far from a bad thing, and had even become something of a comfortable reminder of how much better things were now. There weren't many jobs for someone with a club foot, but this one was the best he'd had by far. No need to run around or lift anything or fight in the war.
He wrung his hands for a moment as the ringing dragged on. He'd been doing his part, of course, and had even been assigned to higher security work that came with better pay and a rank, even if he only had it by technicality.
He picked up the phone and tried his best to smile. He'd long since learned others could definitely hear that sort of thing. "Hello, I am Johan Schmidtson. What question do you have for the Empire?"
Now, however, he'd been asked to do something that was not in his job description. Before that thought could make him frown, he remembered exactly why he'd taken the job and kept his smile intact even as the question came over the line. "Er, yes. What beer is, eh, good here?"
He gave the same answer he had the first few times he'd heard the question, and wondered if all sailors were the same, asking about what beer was decent. That was the third one this hour!
As he ended the mercifully short conversation, he couldn't help the relieved sigh that escaped his soul. At least it wasn't one of those questions.
He glanced at the copy of the papers he and everyone else in the room had been given. He'd done his best to memorize it in the singular hour he'd been given after this new task had been sprung on him, but he referred back to it often. He wasn't interested in saying anything he shouldn't, especially with the affable but intimidating soldier standing at the entrance to their room making small talk with those on break.
His well-polished rifle shone in the light of the sun streaming into the crowded room.
If they were asked about major differences between their last world and this one, they were to mention the unification of the North Germanic Confederation and the Ostian Empire in whatever detail they could remember, the lack of Sirens, and nothing else and especially not magic.
If they were asked why they were all being confined to one port and couldn't leave it, or why there were so few people in the city, they were to be told that the authorities were making sure that a plague would not escape from one side to devastate the population of the other, and nothing else.
There were others concerning the propaganda pageant going on in Hamburg, and the last war, and-
RIIIIIING!
Johan flinched as the phone went off again. Oh, but those weren't all the questions. No, he was asked what food or beer or places were interesting, why the Empire still had an Emperor, why the Empire still had democracy, why the Empire was one country, why the Empire had started their war, why everyone seemed so scarred by the food of the army, why the Empire had pirates in the military, why the Empire's borders were the way they were, why Tanya von Degurechaff sounded like that woman from Japan, why the so-called 'shipgirls' in the picture with the Kaiser's naval review from yesterday had all been wearing uniforms instead of their normal clothing, and a million other, tinier, seemingly insignificant things he hadn't had the smallest idea of before today!
But, if nothing else, the military was efficient and realized that giving their switchboard operators a whole new job without some help would turn out horribly, which meant they had been provided with several boxes filled with all kinds of books and a few students from the local university to help them…
Which meant Johan had to walk to look through those books.
The woman on the phone was familiar, and he resisted the urge to groan. Not again.
He asked the same question in the same tone, as he already had dozens of times that day, and felt his psyche get blasted apart as the woman on the other end recognized his voice and began shouting.
Ignoring the tirade ordering him to explain where 'god's gifts to kansen kind' were hiding their base, he repeated what he'd told her hours ago. "I'm sorry ma'am, but you exceeded your time limit last time and we are not allowing repeat-"
There was a tirade of words he didn't understand but assumed were insults in another language as he disconnected the call and sighed again. He was all for cultural exchange. Who hadn't been hooked on every image flooding every newspaper every minute of every day since they'd come to this place?
When it resulted in getting shouted at and having to answer a bunch of questions he didn't know the answer to, the whole idea didn't feel nearly as enticing a thing to participate in.
The phone rang again, and he prayed it wasn't that woman or any of the others he'd heard complaints leveled at already. Even…
He picked up the phone and anxiously wiped his face. Actually, no, the Soviet bastards weren't quite as bad. The two times he'd gotten a call from their housing, the caller and a bunch of miscreants had just recited propaganda at him.
Honestly, he wouldn't have even considered signing up for this if it weren't for the bonus…
He gulped as the voice on the other line asked about his job as a switchboard operator, apparently fascinated that people were still doing the job.
This world had figured out a way to get rid of switchboard operators. He was hoping and praying that if he did everything right, there might be a job somewhere, anywhere, in the army for him.
He put on a plaster grin and went on about how grateful he was to have his job. He really was.
He didn't know what he'd do without it.
-OxOxO-
As the sound of drilling sheships echoed below her, dodging fire or doing speed trials or damage control or close-quarters combat or projectile calculations, a small part of Viktoriya reveled in her position. Once, Lieutenant Degurechaff had been the one flying high above the 203rd, constantly observing them while they trained to become the very best soldier the Empire could possibly offer. Now, she occupied that place.
Most of Viktoriya didn't particularly care about that. The 203rd had already undertaken a few training exercises with the Salamander Kampfgruppe before they'd begun fighting the Federation, so there was little novelty in the situation for her.
No, what most of her was concerned with was what had happened yesterday. The Kaiser's naval review hadn't been too bad, though helping Tanya wrangle those that would be presented to the Kaiser into actual uniforms Tanya had ordered procured from the navy, and then getting them to stop changing those clothes into copies of the clothes they'd been created with had been surprisingly laborious.
After the review, however, she'd supervised the latrine duty of the three Monarch-class battleships. There two sisters of the lead ship of the class had tried to argue that they weren't really at fault and that Monarch was the only one who should be punished, and then, when Viktoriya had not proven amenable to that line of reasoning, all three had tried to argue that such work was below them.
Viktoriya had simply replied that Tanya hadn't specified exactly how long they should be on duty, and that while two hours sounded like a decent amount of time, she could always add on more.
Things had been much smoother after that… at first, at least. Viktoriya had gotten a bit of clerical work Tanya had assigned to her while they worked and made some quiet conversation. She hadn't paid much mind to it.
Viktoriya's already red face brightened as she licked her wind-chapped lips.
At first, she hadn't paid much mind to the talking. She had better things to do, after all!
Naturally, when she'd heard Monarch mention Tanya, she had tuned back into the conversation.
"Monarch, you cannot be saying stuff like-"
"Like me wanting to pin that morsel against a wall and having my way with her?"
Viktoriya had almost choked on the air at that and had sent an incredulous look through the open bathroom door, only to look directly up Monarch's skirt as she bent down to wipe the floor.
Viktoriya's face grew even more red. Why in the hell wasn't she wearing any undergarments!?
"Perhaps our jailor would like to join the pair of us?" was all Viktoriya had heard before studiously focusing all of her being on the paperwork she'd brought with her in a desperate and futile effort to block out the conversation going on in front of her.
It hadn't worked well, especially when Monarch's sisters had instead turned to fantasizing about members of Nemonia's human staff.
She licked her lips again as she looked down at everyone training. It was more difficult than one might have assumed to pick out the three of them, considering just how varied the clothing of the Empire's sheships was, but she did eventually pick out Monarch and her sisters. As she did, visions of the things Monarch had proposed breached her mind's eye, and Viktoriya couldn't help her involuntary shudder.
In one way, it wasn't just Monarch that was interested. She'd already heard rumors from the other members of the 203rd about whispered conversations held between the sheships about various men and women working on the base. The 203rd was a bit nervous about them because of just how thorough Tanya had been in reteaching that particular section of the rulebook into their heads…
Though Viktoriya and Neumann's reveal that Tanya didn't particularly care as long as they didn't break the rules she had drilled into them had allayed a lot of that nervousness.
In another way, it wasn't just Monarch that caught Viktoriya's eye. It wasn't like she was even trying, it was just…
She sighed forlornly. So, so many of them were hot. Perhaps even outrageously so.
Her mind flashed to the aristocratic lines of Monarch's face, to the appraising look in Nassau's eyes, to the way that Gazelle's hips had swayed as she walked back to her room, to a dozen other moments and seconds, and to the veritable, cumulative miles worth of Nemonia's bared skin without even the slightest imperfection.
And now, she was flying between the various training exercises going on, critiquing it all from on high over the Emerald Bay. Most were unhappy with the exacting demands she patterned after what she remembered of the 203rd's training, but what really made her heart beat erratically were the ones that seemed excited by her orders, and not because they were enthused with the material they were learning.
Viktoriya wasn't sure if she should dread or look forward to teaching the newly created games club how to play all the card games she knew, but she knew she'd have to survive, even if her heart gave out.
She'd survived a lot; the punishment Tanya might mete out would surely dwarf whatever trials she faced from the sheships.
-OxOxO-
As the last candidate left the room, the eight men and women that made up the current Special Committee of Appointments and Ranks looked down at the papers strewn across their table.
"They are…"
Zoe merely frowned in agreement with the man from the navy. Indeed. The candidates they'd all interviewed indeed were.
They were beautiful and powerful, undeniably so. Zoe would be lying if she said she weren't jealous of all of them, and she wasn't exactly bad looking. Their beauty was only compounded by the clothing they wore; anyone even slightly less confident would have ended up looking ridiculous in addition to scandalous, but somehow they all seemed capable of making it work.
Something else they were was horrible candidates for a leadership position. She was sure they would all excel in a battlefield leadership position, but that didn't have half a mind for logistics, paperwork, or hierarchy between them.
Zoe grimaced. Well, a hierarchy that didn't place themselves above everyone else, anyway.
And the rare few that did possess those qualities deferred to the ones who didn't, were generally anxious, and seemed mystified as to why they were even there, which all were not good for their potential.
Another voice to her right spoke up. "Forget about who will lead them, who could get them to work together?"
Who else besides their last candidate went unsaid.
Her grimace deepened. The lists of candidates, sourced from the lead researcher at Nemonia, one Doctor Schugel, some of the many instructors at the burgeoning organization, as well as, of course, Tanya von Degurechaff, the Chief Instructor. All of them had been interviewed, and all of them were… lacking.
They all had differing views as to what exactly Nemonia should do and how it should be structured, beyond the highest-level ideas of protecting the Empire and fighting the Sirens. It was beyond frustrating!
The nominal leader of the group, the navy's appointee to the committee, sighed in resignation. "Alright. Let us then discuss the… prudence of the last candidate."
There was no interview for her, naturally. Her capabilities and ideas on Nemonia were well documented and served as part of the basis by which they were judging the candidates for the role, even.
Two of the members of the committee, the Mage Force and the Army's appointees, quickly got back to what they'd been doing at the start of the rushed meeting. "The fact that we even considered anyone else is ludicrous, but even I didn't expect them to be that bad."
"Everyone looks bad compared to her."
More conversation carried on tepidly. Zoe didn't contribute much, more interested in listening to the ideas of those around her.
The only other member of the committee to advocate wholeheartedly for the appointment of Degurechaff to being the leader of Nemonia was the theoretical political appointee of the Chancellor, though his long list of aristocratic titles singled him out as the Emperor's man.
The only member of the committee that didn't have a particular opinion one way or the other was the one from the nascent Air Force. He'd actually advocated for interviewing her and ascertaining if she wanted the job, considering she hadn't included herself in her own list and the other member of Nemonia's upper staff, Schugel, had specifically refused the idea that he was to be in charge.
Everyone else, including herself, were somewhat reluctant about the appointment.
Not because she wasn't suitable for the job, of course. Degurechaff was leagues above anyone else that had been suggested so far, obviously in the experience category but also in every other category. Zoe assumed that the navy's internal quarreling was the reason the vaguely aristocratic naval appointee was reluctant about placing her in such an important position.
Zoe and the other two doubters, as the appointees of their respective parties, would much rather Degurechaff be dismissed from the military and recruited to help them boost their numbers. Elections probably wouldn't be held for at most another two years, and certainly not before the memories of the ongoing food shortage were out of everyone's minds, but that didn't matter.
She was the darling of the Empire. With every publication of her seemingly miraculous but undeniably pivotal role in the entire war, her popularity grew, and if a party managed to snag her, they could secure an outright majority in the next election.
Zoe steepled her hands. Probably, anyway. She wasn't exactly high up enough in the party to know such things concretely, but what she did know was that whoever secured her would see their career soar.
The representatives of the Social Democratic Party and the Imperial Conservative Party knew as much as well. It had been an unpleasant thought to find herself in the same boat with them.
Unfortunately, the problem was there was no way in hell any of them could secure that here.
Zoe finally leaned back in her chair, unhappy as the navy man began to bicker with the SDP's appointee. If they had a bit more time, they might be able to delay things and find some reason to deny her the promotion. A bit more and perhaps a law establishing a concrete lower bound for the age of military service members, and they could even get her ushered out of the military and into a more useful position for them.
The Kaiser's decree after the naval review yesterday had thrown a wrench in even the formation of such a plan. The story that had been cooked up was that the previous leader of their sheship force had died in a battle right before they crossed over, along with all of the ships made before and right after the turn of the decade.
She rolled her eyes as the navy and the army man began verbally sparring again. She almost couldn't believe just how much the papers had been going on about the 'Flight of Brandenburg,' along with a history of their sheships that read more like a soap opera than anything resembling factuality. Unfortunately, she was well aware just how heavy-handed the propaganda department could be when they wanted to be.
For a moment, her greed went to war with her professionalism. The three of them could work together with the dissenting military appointees…
She sighed. Unfortunately, they could get ordered to choose her if they stalled too long. She wasn't going to assume that wouldn't happen eventually, especially with the Kaiser publicly decreeing he couldn't wait for the announcement to be made after the joint exercises.
Zoe leaned forward. "Let's not waste anymore time. Degurechaff is clearly the best candidate we have on short notice. While I would like just as much time to consider other, more… normal candidates," she said, taking care not to say the word 'human,' "the post has been vacant for too long already."
The appointee of the Air Force concurred with her after a moment and a sigh. She turned to her right and looked at the other appointees of the other two major parties.
After a moment, the SDP representative agreed, followed by the ICP representative. It only took a bit of needling for the representative of the navy to cave. He signed the papers for her promotion, effective exactly an hour after the joint exercises ended, and they moved on.
As the Air Force appointment passed around dossiers on the people from other branches and the civilian sector the Air Force wanted to procure as well as recommended ranks and positions, she only hoped that having helped promote Degurechaff would help her down the line. If she were honest with herself, it probably wouldn't, but a girl could dream.
-OxOxO-
Tanya had been surprised by Schugel's latest summons. For one, it wasn't anywhere in the base Nemonia was occupying. For another, it wasn't anywhere on the Emerald Bay. Instead, she was summoned to Hamborg.
Unfortunately, her lack of familiarity with the address, along with Schugel's insistence during the call, required that she be driven over rather than fly, necessitating an early end to her participation in the latest round of training. They were improving rapidly, which Tanya really was thankful for. Every bit of training they received worked doubly to protect her from frontline duty – proving their capability to fight the Sirens also proved her efficacy as an instructor suited to duties other than almost getting shot.
Tanya surveyed the port as they were waved through after a cursory check of their papers. She had done a bit of paperwork in the early part of the drive, but she'd decided to stow it away and instead focus on her coming test. Schugel's call had been suspiciously light on details.
Unfortunately, she was at a loss as to what it could be. His position within Nemonia might suggest that it was something related to wisdom cubes or the sheships, but considering the fact that he was still developing computation jewels like the Type 98, she doubted his title was anything but a formality to justify his erratic desire to branch out.
Neither of those facts explained why he wanted to come to this place, specifically. None of the various navy ships being serviced in the docks were Nemonia's after all… unless he'd somehow managed to convince the navy to give them the more modern ships early?
Before the car they were in pulled up to the appropriate warehouse, Tanya caught sight of an ocean liner of all things in one of the docks, and she rolled her eyes. She stepped out of the car and wondered how much whatever aristocrat that owned it had had to pay to get it serviced in a military yard.
Schugel stood at the entrance to the warehouse, the interior abnormally dark, a wide grin splitting his face. She frowned as she marched closer. The windows had all been closed, which meant they wanted secrecy. What on Earth was he working on now?
And, more importantly, why was she there?
"Lieutenant Degurechaff!"
"Doctor Schugel," she replied to his bombastic pronouncement. "You were very circumspect about exactly why you needed me here. Would you mind explaining now?"
He nodded and gestured inside, which, despite being five feet away from, she couldn't see into. It was undoubtedly an illusion. "Of course! Just step inside. I've even taken the liberty of procuring some refreshments for you."
Tanya's eyebrows shot up, her paranoia spiking with them. He was trying to butter her up with food?
She grumbled as she stepped inside. That certainly didn't bode well for her approval of this particular escapade, considering he hadn't ever done that before.
She stepped inside and blinked as the interior came into view. Off to the side, a man dressed in a lab coat much like Schugel's nodded once as the Doctor stepped in, the door was shut, and the illusion he'd been keeping in place to block outside observance of the interior faded. She nodded approvingly at that and then began making her way through the stuffed warehouse.
There was barely enough room for her to maneuver around, in the tight hallways of various metals, barrels of the ingredients for concrete, crates of ammunition, stacks of tires, and what looked to be imported naval equipment. That meant that for the fully grown adults in the room, there wasn't enough room to walk.
Most were making do with the help of some naval mages that were ferrying around various doctors and scientists in the room through the air. They were all headed towards the same part of the room Schugel was leading her towards.
Schugel made due by pushing past the pain of squeezing through the corridors of immovable metal with a smile on his face and without a care for his own comfort.
If he'd asked nicely enough, she might have considered carrying him, just to inflict the indignity on him.
Still, they soon made their way to the back corner of the place, which seemed to be the only relatively open area. There was a small office space that seemed to have been reinforced by a few of the steel plates she'd seen elsewhere, a pair of rubber gloves sticking out of one of the walls, and a small pedestal for a wisdom cube.
Tanya's immediate paranoia was proven wonderfully prescient. "Schugel. What am I looking at?"
He grinned widely and gestured to the open door, through which the smell of coffee wafted. "All in good time. Wouldn't you care for refreshments first, Lieutenant?"
She sighed, and they wasted a few minutes eating an admittedly delicious array of chocolate snacks from abroad and semi-decent coffee. She firmly rejected his offer of wasting even more time going over Nemonia's progress, which she had already or would soon be putting into writing. "Schugel. Why have you requested my presence here?"
He grinned, and the other personnel in the room all took a few steps back. "You haven't guessed yet?"
She sighed as those around them recovered from the terrifying sight of Schugel somehow becoming happier than he normally was and busied themselves with preparations for whatever was going on. In the end, only one thing sprang to mind that only she could do that other mages couldn't. "My only guess is that you need me to use the Type 95-"
"Bingo!" he said and nodded. "What a wonderful term I picked up from the Americans." He cleared his throat. "Yes, that is why. It has the power throughput to handle a new formula I've configured to assist in the creation of sheships."
"Then why," she asked, "Are we in a warehouse instead of on the Emerald Bay?"
His grin widened somehow. "Ah, that is another test we are performing." He took a deep breath.
"What is a sheship?" he asked.
Tanya's brow furrowed. "The product of alien technology we don't really know a lot about. A manifestation of a people's beliefs about a certain ship." A bulwark between her and frontline service.
He nodded. "Correct, on both counts. What fascinated me, when we were awakening sheships, was that it was specifically people's beliefs that their awakening relied on."
He began gesticulating wildly. "Indeed, the propaganda department has placed a few pieces of misinformation in a number of sheships's histories when they were released to the public. In every case, the power required to manifest those ships was greater when less factual information was publicly available, the mental state of the manifested ships was lesser than their peers, or their personalities were aberrant."
Tanya blinked. "You purposefully damaged them?" she asked, her voice low. If she wound up dying because Schugel had worked with the propaganda department to undermine their viability as a test, she would try and take him down with her, wasteful and spiteful or not.
He let out a loud bark of laughter. "I hadn't expected you to care for them so quickly," he replied. Before she could add a caveat to his statement, that of course she cared about the things keeping her from facing down technologically advanced aliens, he continued. "Yes, though the papers printed corrections and retractions, which correlated with them rising to become almost on par with other ships in their class."
Before she could rip into him, he continued. "So, then the line of reasoning continues, if people's beliefs can alter how a sheship manifests, could a sheship be manifested based on beliefs alone?"
Tanya blinked. "And that is what we are here to test?"
Schugel shook his head once. "Not even a little! That phenomenon is already well understood in this world, and the answer is no; a ship must have a bare minimum of material available as a foundation, though the degree to which one can brush past the details is astounding."
He nodded to himself. "I've even discussed the subject with men of science from the other major nations."
He grinned as he looked out of the open door at the warehouse. It certainly didn't give a very good view of the place, but he didn't seem to care. "No, this world has already explored a large extent of manifesting a ship with no history and found benefits and drawbacks of the process. The Empire is simply playing catch up with their blueprint ships."
"With that in mind," he finished as he gestured to one of the walls of the small, overstuffed office, "your presence here is simply to test the true capabilities of the formula I've developed. Hopefully, I'll be able to streamline it at a later date, but being able to activate them without using any actual radioactive substance would be a godsend."
Tanya almost nodded in immediate agreement at the efficiencies present in his words, but then their exact meaning caught up to her. "You're… eliminating radioactivity from the equation?" she asked, skeptically. She'd thought-
"No, no, no," he said, "Here, take a look at the formula," he said as he gestured to the whiteboard behind her that dominated one wall of the room. She scanned it briefly, feeding it into her Type 98 to get a feel for it.
Then, as she did so, her eyes widened in shock and surprise. This…
"Schugel."
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Did you create a cancer formula?"
He scoffed. "Of course not!" he shouted, sniffing. "I like to think of it as a mobile x-ray formula-"
"Schugel. I may not be a nuclear physicist, but even I know that there is a difference between x-rays and alpha particles!"
"Nevermind that. Can you handle the mana requirements?"
She pushed the fact that she literally had a cancer formula to the side and instead ran the calculation. "Yes."
He raised an eyebrow. "Really? I thought-"
"I won't even need the Type 95," she said. It was taxing, but certainly not impossible for her… or for others, which begged the question as to why she was there.
For the first time since arriving, Schugel frowned. "Are you certain you aren't-"
"Schugel," she said, cutting him off, "I am very busy, and this will be very taxing, as you said. If you wouldn't mind, could we please begin?" If he was going to insist she participate, she wanted it over and done with so she could get back to doing something more productive with her time.
He was silent as the grave for a moment, but then he shrugged. "Alright, fine. Let's get this started!"
He took her Type 98 and placed it in the rubber hand on the outside of the small office while Tanya stepped up to the two gloves, thrusting her arms into them and staring through the slit as a pair of marine mages loaded a wisdom cube into the pedestal two dozen feet away from the slit. He stepped forward and placed the Type 98 in one hand-
And she felt the Type 95 swiped off of her shirt. "What the h-"
"Relax," he said as an aide handed him the Type 95 and he placed it in the other. "This is just in case the Type 98 isn't enough."
Her frown worsened, her trepidation increasing exponentially. "Schugel," she hissed into the small speaker by her mouth, "why am I here? I know a dozen other A-ranked mages that could do this."
Schugel narrowed his eyes at her and then, after slipping back in and ordering the heavy door shut behind him, he slid right next to her. "Well, while I could say that it's because we're witnessing the birth of the Empire's first aircraft carrier sheship, converted from an ocean liner or not…" he began, " the real reason you're here is that God told me that if I continued on this path, I would produce a weapon to outclass the Type 95. I want everything to go right, and you're the most reliable mage I know."
With another smile and a wink, he stepped back and began to run through the safety procedures with everyone else. Outside, she heard the heavy doors of the warehouse moving backwards, exposing the interior to the outside world.
Tanya was thinking furiously. A weapon to outclass the Type 95? It was a preposterous thought, given just how powerful and deadly it already was, and she doubted it was even true.
Though her immediate thought had been that maybe that would mean she wouldn't ever have to fight the sirens, she doubted Being X would ever do something that helpful. She was certain that she couldn't back out of this with that pronouncement, especially since there weren't many reasons to refuse.
There was her personal distaste, of course, but absolutely none of her superiors would care if it gave them a shipgirl on par with the Type 95, whatever that was supposed to mean for a shipgirl. There even seemed to be a decent amount of safety equipment, if the hulking doors that she presumed were lead lined were any indication.
"Countdown!"
The numbers ticked by from ten. Tanya crushed a brief flare of anxiety – there was nothing to do but follow Schugel's 'suggestions' that carried with them the inevitable ire of her superiors should she refuse to help create a new, game changing weapon.
One of the men sitting at a station in front of an array of sensory equipment reached five. The room around them began to thrum with the movement of electricity.
He reached three, and Active Barriers burst to life, undoubtedly with the modification Schugel had made to the one in her Type 98 to block radiation, courtesy of the marine mages.
He reached one. Cursing Being X and Schugel under her breath, she spun up the formula in her Type 98. Though there was a slight eminence of light from it, there was no other visible indication that it was working.
Tanya grit her teeth as her mana was pulled and pulled and pulled by the formula. The glowing light of the blue cube steadily grew brighter and brighter and brighter. Around her, a cacophony of voices began to chatter.
"I thought I'd let you know," Schugel said, "That the designs for this specific ship vary quite differently from the ones that were originally dreamed up."
She tried to block out his ramblings and the clattering and clanging of every item in the warehouse to focus on the formula. Every loose piece of metal, technology, and material in the warehouse seemed to be groaning through the speakers in the room, synchronizing with the droning of flowing electricity and the wisdom cube.
"After all, we have so much technology at our fingertips! Why limit the design?"
A headache burst into existence, pounding and pounding and pounding on the inside of her skull. Outside of the warehouse, something was making the same, droning vibration as everything around her was. The ocean liner, perhaps?
"Just as I wasn't with the Type 95, the designers were not limited in the slightest. They looked at every attempt to convert ships into aircraft carriers. The ship One, in this world and the version you are converting, the Bearn, the Aquila, the Lexington-class and Independence-class carriers, the Akagi, and more."
"After all!" He was shouting to be heard over the droning of the cube. The ground was shaking like there was an earthquake, "Why limit ourselves! Why not take examples from everyone, the major factions and the minor factions and the Sirens! Why not amalgamate the best the world has to offer! Why not add circuitry and technology from around the world! Why not throw in a few Computation Jewels and some busted Sirens riggings for good measure!"
Her reserves bottoming out, she cut off the formula. The noise and the light kept growing brighter. Metal was slamming together, being shorn and twisted and rent and poured into the glowing white singularity only barely visible through the slit in the wall. The ground was still shaking – no, it wasn't simply shaking. She could hear it being broken and molded and drawn right into the singularity as well.
She closed her eyes, unable to pull away from the wall without dropping the computation jewels grasped in the gloves, but the light shone through her eyelids.
"After all," Schugel shouted, his nose pressed into the side of her head, "whatever instability mars my perfect creation will be just a prayer to God away from being solved."
She spun towards him, barely able to make out his face through the light pouring into the room. "Schugel, what the hell-"
"And the most wonderful thing of all," he said, "is that while your Type 95 is the only one that works, that does not preclude me from making another, given the higher purpose of this mission!"
The light and sound became all encompassing, and before dread could even pool appreciably in her stomach, the front wall that she was partially inside of collapsed, closing the slit of light.
Then, the rumbling and incessant droning stopped.
There were several crashes above them, and the Active Barriers the marine mages had put up began to flicker erratically as the roof sagged.
As the roof settled, everyone in the room held their collective breath.
Just as Tanya was about to speak a voice rang out from a crackling speaker sitting on one of the tables.
"Ohayo, guten tag, and good evening to you all! Though I was never completed, I am happy to stand before you as the Empire's first aircraft carrier, ready to serve the fatherland! My name? Eh, it's a bit embarrassing how long it took for it to be decided on, but I guess…"
That voice. Even muffled and distorted by the speaker, that voice was unmistakable.
"You can call me Tanya von Degurechaff!"
Oh no.
-OxOxO-
SPECIAL MIDDAY RELEASE:
We would like to APOLOGIZE PROFUSELY to our readers for having MISLABELED a few of the plans in the latest batch. The designs for the AIRCRAFT CARRIER conversion were not, in fact, for that specific conversion, but instead the CULMINATION of the plans of the TEAM led by the brilliant DOCTOR SCHUGEL for the EMPIRE'S first sheship aircraft carrier, the SMS Tanya von Degurechaff.
WARNING! THIS LEAFLET IS FOR THE CONSUMPTION OF IMPERIAL EYES-ONLY. DO NOT PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION TO NON-IMPERIAL CITIZENS UNDER THE CHARGE OF TREASON.
-OxOxO-
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