Day 73
Okay, I turned in a little earlier so I can write down my thoughts about this entire clusterfuck. And that is what this was, no way around it.
First off, Akatsuki is physically similar, but not quite like the one I vaguely remember from game art. Makes sense, I doubt any of this fully aligns with what they put into a game.
Secondly, her English is thankfully good. We could at least talk to each other, not that there was much talking at first. Most of it was scared questions about who I am and where she is; I am not sure if me being quiet was reassuring or scaring her, back there in the bath. Yesterday is less fresh in my memory now. I told her that I found her on the beach and tried to get her back into the bath. She did not want to.
Suffice it to say, I only had a vague idea how to act around a clearly terrified girl. I did not want to scare her, but she would not really calm down, either.
In the end I told her to breathe. Maybe that helped a little. Then I think I offered to answer her questions if she comes back into the bath. She complied then, even if she stayed skittish and sat down as far away from me as she could. I wonder if that fear is a normal reaction or Akatsuki is just more prone to it. Maybe the absence of her fleet added to the initial panic.
Either way, that was when I learned her name. I offered mine first, if just to get her to open up. Then she asked her questions again, one after the other.
I tried to answer as best I could, though I could only shrug when she asked what would happen to her now. I really did not think that far and still do not know what to do; hence this log, I need to sort my thoughts.
"But you're an Abyssal?" is what she said when I told her to finish repairs first. "Why do you help me?"
That hurts a bit in retrospect, but I just took it without much reaction. "Is it wrong?" I asked her back. "Wanting to help?"
She did not really have anything else to say to that. Then we had an awkward silence that lasted several minutes. You know those that get worse the longer no one says anything? I went through dozens of things we could talk about and disregarded them all. Asking where she is from could have been taken as trying to squeeze information out of her, and so on. Most subjects could have been taken that way.
I eventually asked her to stay here while I attended some other duties, which worked for an hour or two. I already made calls to Frostbite and my girls, then went to the kitchen to make a snack. I was halfway done when I heard Akatsuki shriek, followed by a gurgling bellow.
I think I wrote yesterday that this was surreal. Imagine my face when I step out into the hallway, only to have a damp and naked shipgirl slam face-first into my tits. Said shipgirl is being pursued by a four-legged pseudo-shark with a dozen squirming root-tentacles. You could not make this up if you tried.
I caught her in my arms and barked at Hydra to stay down; that at least got the latter to grind to a halt, but Akatsuki was trying to fight me off. I needed to take a half hour in the bath myself after; the only reason she gave me no more than bruises is that she was still so damaged.
When she stopped struggling and fell limp, I held her at arm's length. Hydra growled until I threw her a sharp look. After setting down the destroyer, I told my first ship to go outside and patrol. Then I shuffled Akatsuki into the kitchen to chew her out; there was a good reason I told her to stay in the bath. I can not stop Hydra from roaming around.
She was so shaken that she even mumbled an apology. I only realise right now that she was probably trying to escape what appeared like captivity. Well, so much for that.
So after taking my new batch of candies off the heat, I stuffed one in the surprised destroyer's mouth and marched her back to the baths. When I told her again to stay in there, she complied.
That was most of what happened yesterday, really. Repair baths take a good, long while to repair even a small ship. Akatsuki stayed in the bath all day while I bustled around, trying to figure out what to do.
I still do not know, by the way.
Jeanne and Ariel are slated to return sometime tomorrow. My time is running out; I can order my scaly, barky fish-dog down, but not them. Their instincts are the same.
At least today was calmer than yesterday. I visited Akatsuki three times in the bath, partly to check she is still there and partly to check on her. She is nowhere near fully repaired, but the worst of it is gone. From what I coaxed out of her, she got hammered by Frostbite while protecting her own flagship. We did not talk much about the nearby battle; she refused to part with anything about her fleet, I wisely said nothing about my own contributions.
Sometime today, I got this insane idea to solve my food issues through her; try to set up some sort of trade where I pay her resources to go and buy groceries. But the logistics of that alone are a nightmare. Not to mention what her superiors would do if they found out; or worse really, if she tells them. There is an argument to be made for betting on greed, to just give her several bars of gold to hand her superiors and hope I can buy them. But I do not want to keep buying them either.
Like I thought yesterday, killing her immediately would have been the best choice. But seeing her slumped over in the tub just tugs at my heartstrings. I can suspend these things if I do not see anyone, I do not feel much of anything for whoever Frostbite sank or lost two nights ago. But this girl right in front of me is a different matter entirely.
She asked me again why I am doing this, but I still had no real answer. I could go and throw her into my second spawn pool, the Abyss tells me that would yield results; but it would also destroy the girl.
Can I go back to hiding from my enemies instead of accidentally sheltering them? That was nicer. I do not like sitting between a rock and a hard place like this.
Hydra took to prowling around my base. I do not know how much Akatsuki saw of it yesterday, but she definitely will not see any more. At least it is clean and looks nice, what with the gold and silver ornaments I have everywhere.
There was one odd moment where I had Ionia standing in the door, telling me that there was an enemy in the baths. She must have come back without me realising, so I told her not to worry about it; I put the girl there. I also asked her to keep this to herself, which earned me a simple nod. It is hard to tell what Ionia thinks. At least she does not have the same urge to kill, due to being a transport ship.
I still do not know what to do.
Day 74
I let her go.
Maybe it was not the correct choice, but I feel it was the right one. I could find enough reasons to justify myself, but none of them are true. Chances are good I will be dead if anyone but me reads this, anyway.
Something I firmly believe in is that the moments that define us do not depend on others. What says the most about us is what we do when there is no reward to be found, when nobody is there to witness or judge our actions. I doubt I will ever be all that good about doing the right thing, but at least this once I wanted to.
So I woke Akatsuki and gave her some simple cloth I synthesized, then led her out to the beach. Hydra was told to stay back inside, just in case she tries using her cannon. I gave Akatsuki a full tank of fuel and told her to go.
She was so utterly confused, it would have been funny if I had not felt like I was making a grave mistake the whole time. "You just let me go?" is what she asked, standing there forlornly. I know I am plenty tall now, but she felt even smaller there.
"Just go. It would be nice if you didn't tell anyone, but I'm not dumb enough to believe you won't." There was some morbid humour in my voice. Maybe I should have killed her, but that window of opportunity has long passed. "I don't want to be involved in this war any more than I have to. Now go."
It still took her a few seconds to get moving. She applied her rigging before her feet hit the water, standing evenly upon the waves; it was mostly just patched over, but it will definitely hold. She looked back several times, probably not quite believing what happened. I just stood there at the beach, feeling weird until she left my sight.
Afterward, I lay down in the sand to think. The dread has faded by now, though I still feel I made a mistake. Hard choices are named like that for a reason. But I guess it makes sense with my general philosophy of not being first to strike. I will give Akatsuki and her commanders enough rope to hang themselves with; if nothing comes of this, great. If Haven is being carpet-bombed in two weeks, I may have to reevaluate a few things.
Ariel and Jeanne returned a few hours later, both perfectly healthy and brimming with energy. Well, Jeanne at least. Ariel excused herself after a short debriefing; I caught her on the computer later. A budding nerd after my own heart.
Jeanne was the one who asked me about my days here, though. "Have you considered what I told you in regard to Sapphire?" was one of her questions as well. Maybe I underestimated how much thought she put into that particular subject.
Either way, I took her to the bubbling spawn pool and told her she had a point, but that I still hate the prospect of losing anyone. Hence why Sapphire is currently undergoing metamorphosis to become a Submarine Demon. Suffice it to say, Jeanne was just as confused as Sapphire herself about that one until I explained.
While I had her there, we also discussed turning Ionia into a Demon or some equivalent. Jeanne was unsure if that made sense, same as I; we asked our transport's opinion on the matter later, but she simply shrugged. Seems she does not care too much.
Day 75
Today was nice for several reasons. The first is that Sapphire came back to us new and improved. The other is that Orion finished assembling all the bases I asked her to. It has been two months since she was back at Haven, but now she is finally home.
That was actually the first thing happening today; Orion already announced that she completed the mission last night. She returned around noon, upon which I introduced her to the Demons she had yet to meet in person. Jeanne seemed amused by her curt greeting; Ariel returned it softly before thanking Orion for her hard work.
The moment introductions were over, my little workaholic asked me what to do next. So I put her to work learning interior decorating on the Internet; I want my base properly furbished, and anything I can offload onto someone else is good. She took to it without issue, though a rotation on the computer had to be figured out; Ariel likes using it. I will need to make a few more in the near future.
Then Sapphire emerged from the spawn pool with a whoop; this time it was not just me, but also the Demons there to greet her back. She was not the least bit intimidated of them anymore, cheerfully splashing Abyss goop as she waded out. "Submarine Demon ready to roam! I return to your side, Princess!"
She seemed so enthusiastic, like how she was at the start. Getting this upgrade must have meant more to her than I thought; at the time, I was a little worried she lost something during the metamorphosis. Some probing told me that she still remembered her name and the past months, though.
Honestly, the other surprising change was her body. Sapphire shot up something like twenty centimetres and her eyes gleam aquamarine now. Also, where she was lithe before, she is now stacked. What does a submarine need engines that big for?
Well, not my problem. Though I do envy that she seamlessly adapted to her new center of gravity after stumbling exactly once. Jeanne and Ariel greeted her as their sister and Sapphire was over the moon. Then she spent a while squeezing details about their deployment under Frostbite out of the twins.
I left them to that and did what I lacked the focus to do the past few days: consider new techs on the tree. I am starting to finish the generic stuff and my pet projects; comms got another upgrade to become more stable through bad weather, too. Now I need to pick a direction to develop into; a little preparation will not be amiss with my cover probably broken.
With that in mind, I started working on stealth upgrades for Sapphire and cost reductions to various ship types. There are a number of redundant systems that can be optimised away, various little corners the designs are improved in as my R&D teams pour over their blueprints.
I still do not like the prospect, but I know myself. If they do attack me, I will fight back.
Day 80
All was calm the past few days. I made more computers and Sapphire is back to scouting the area; her speed improved a lot, I notice. And more than that, she says merely becoming a Demon has bumped up her stealth a good bit. Her hull did not, though. I do not like to rely on her ability to stay hidden as the sole defense she has, but so be it. I make her the sneakiest girl in the world, just like I keep improving Ariel's hull and Jeanne's aircraft.
Maybe it would be a good idea to give my ships some more firepower, too. I can see laser weapons toward the end of the tech tree, but it will take actual years to get there. Most of the early stuff went quick and cheap, but things take longer and longer to research now. Even with the upgrades that lower research time pushed close to the highest level. The one upside is that I have more time to generate the resources this will guzzle up like nobody's business.
Outside of that, I had a face-to-face meeting with Frostbite today. She was a little surprised that I offered roasted fish; not some sort of delicacy by any means, but Abyssals do not even cook with fire. They do not cook at all. So it certainly impressed my fellow Princess, even if it was just fish with some of my salt sprinkled on.
I have to admit that I underestimated how sharp Frostbite actually is, though. The moment she saw Sapphire and had to be re-introduced, she asked for the tech to evolve Abyssals into Demons. No surprise beyond a moment of shock, no hesitation, no confusion. She up and went for the prize. From the 'negotiations', I gathered that having Jeanne and Ariel there reminded her how much of a game-changer Demons are. Her Mi-Class excavators also amassed enough resources to consider making some for herself. The main point Frostbite considers is that her forces are just about at capacity for her holdings; any more and she can not field them all without destroying her stockpiles.
"Refitting my veterans into Demons will neatly sidestep the problem," was how she summarised. I had to agree, too. Demons are mainly expensive in their creation, but they do not take up much more on fuel or ammunition than other ships.
Either way, once I got her reasoning, I decided that is a tech I can not charge for. The Abyss just handed the method to me after all. Frostbite was clearly befuddled when I told her that; turns out I am the only one who knows how to use it yet. The Abyss can impart knowledge selectively. She also seems to consider me 'blessed' in some form, seeing that I get preferential treatment. And I kind of get it?
Thankfully, me wanting her to have the knowledge had the Abyss pass it onto her. Frostbite blinked at me and nodded thoughtfully. "Not a refit, but a rebirth," she muttered, then asked me if the process left the original ship's personality intact. I did not realise just then, but I think she relaxed once I confirmed that. Was she worried about her own girls not staying the same?
Abyssals may take more after humans than they themselves suspect. Even with different instincts and morals, they still band together and care for each other. I asked Frostbite straight up earlier: "You seem to care for your girls, yet you will send them to war without hesitation."
Her response was illuminating. I need to think hard to get it back together properly.
"War is what we were born for, Dagon. From the smallest to the largest, the slowest to the fastest. Submarine, destroyer, cruiser, carrier, and battleship. Everyone does their part, everyone is appreciated. Those closest to us are missed, should they fall. But we will not fear death, for it will only deliver us back into the Abyss's embrace. I see now you think differently from me and I accept that. I will not criticise you for as long as you do likewise."
That was a fair point all around. Maybe that is the difference between a civilian and a soldier. When I asked her what will happen once there are no more humans left to fight, Frostbite got thoughtful. "I do not know" was her answer. Then she changed the subject and went back to talking trade for other tech.
I guess we both have stuff to think about tonight.
