In deep space, close to Mars…
"How is she, Stefan?"
The young Stabskapitänleutnant smiled as he gazed on the elderly officer who had just walked onto the pilotage platform of the Federal German Starship Bismarck. "She responds like a dream, Herr Kapitän," Stefan Becker stated as he gazed on the several computer screens that displayed all the vital systems of the great ship. The former deck officer of the surface frigate Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — like all the current serving crew of the Bismarck, his participation in Project: Night Eagle was considered above top secret in normal military circles — then turned to smile at his commanding officer, Kapitän zur See Emil Weber. "Almost like sailing on the open ocean…except you have to deal with THREE dimensions instead of TWO when laying a course. Thank God that we've got the computers and people who ARE experienced in space work helping us adjust."
Weber nodded. The former captain of the replenishment ship Berlin had been between postings when he had been called to Fleet Command's offices in Glücksburg near Flensburg five months ago and introduced to three people from Japan. First was Moroboshi Hiromi — as was normal for the growing Earth Defence Force, proper Oriental name order was acknowledged and practiced — the adopted twin sister to the man who had saved Earth from alien invasion months before that. Second was a younger woman named Hakaru Ayami, who was one of over five hundred Terrans from across the planet who had been kidnapped by a race no one on Earth had ever heard of — even WITH the Oni making their presence known in the Tōkyō suburb of Tomobiki — before. Third was an even younger man — having just turned THIRTEEN, by God! — named Ki Tsukihana. Like Ayami, Tsukihana was also a former kidnap victim of the Ipraedies. When the commander of the German Fleet had explained what young Ayami and Tsukihana had discovered when they were trying to return back to their homeworld after escaping their captors, Weber could scarcely believe his ears. And then when Tsukihana had told him what he had arranged to have built to fly under the Dienstflagge der Seestreitkräfte der Bundeswehr…
"And her looks don't bother you at all, Stefan?" the captain asked.
Becker smirked. "Captain, if I cared for that sort of thing, I wouldn't have volunteered to come aboard this ship as your deck officer," he whispered.
Weber nodded. As a German who came to maturity in the 1970s and 1980s, he had never been exposed to mainstream Japanese animation; American and European companies were producing prime entertainment for the youth of the Continent during those years before he outgrew such things and joined the armed services of his nation. But on meeting the young tōshi better known to his peers as "Kōgetsuei," he got a crash-course in the famous 1970s series Uchū Senkan Yamato, which told the story of a post-apocalyptic Earth being threatened by aliens that — thanks to the kindness of friendlier aliens — managed to salvage the wreck of Imperial Japan's greatest battleship and transform it into a spaceship to go forth and find a way to save what was left of humanity. And while Tsukihana hadn't actually sent special probes down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean seven hundred kilometres west of Brest to salvage the wreck of the original Bismarck, there were often times that the captain of Germany's first starship often felt he was surrounded by the ghosts of Ernst Lindemann's ill-fated command.
The ship's looks alone would have made people gape.
There were the differences, of course.
Size being the noticeable one.
The original Bismarck was 241.6 metres long, 36 metres wide and drew 9.9 metres of water thanks to a hull that, fully loaded, displaced 50,300 tonnes.
The current Bismarck was constructed to TEN TIMES the original ship's dimensions — to 2416 metres long, 360 metres wide, displacing 99 metres of water were she to land on an ocean, and from keel to masthead was effectively 410 metres tall — and tipped the scales at an incredible FIFTY MILLION TONNES in Earth gravity!
Truly, the old Sagussans — the extinct race that had constructed the lost fleet of ships (and city-sized space dock to support same) that Tsukihana and Ayami had found in their travels, then decided to use to protect Earth — had built BIG!
And while Bismarck's general looks were based on the design of her namesake from World War Two, there had been many changes. The ship's main armament had been changed to four triple turrets firing what Tsukihana called a "Type 16" mixed projectile railgun and particle energy beam weapon with a bore of over FOUR METRES in diameter that could launch a solid kinetic-round projectile weighing EIGHT HUNDRED TONNES over fifty thousand kilometres at a thousand times the speed of sound…or a beam of deadly energy that could reach triple that distance flying at nearly half the speed of light! Secondary armament included twenty "Type Five" multi-purpose secondary guns at the positions of many of the old ship's 5.9 inch anti-destroyer guns on the weather deck and the 4.1 inch heavy anti-aircraft guns on the first superstructure deck, cell launchers for both anti-ship and anti-aviation missiles, rapid-fire particle cannons for close-in defence work, hull mounted launchers for rocket torpedoes the size of SLBMs at the bow, both flanks amidships and facing astern…and a aerospace support group of sleek stealth space fighters Tsukihana called the Starfire (launched from a hangar bay in the keel of the ship ahead of the main engine assemblies), four service shuttlecraft with warp capabilities known as Star Flares (housed in the hangar assembly aft of amidships) and two dozen small work shuttlecraft called Space Dhows (housed in the superstructure above the weather deck forward and aft of the funnel…which, like the fictional Yamato of the anime series, housed "stack missiles" that protected Bismarck from a direct overhead attack away from the fire arcs of the main guns). The only thing Bismarck didn't have…much to Weber's personal delight…was a weapon of mass destruction fitted into the bow like that Yamato's wave motion gun.
Naturally, on seeing the new Bismarck for the first time, Emil Weber called in every priest he could swear to secrecy so they could bless the starship and ensure the dark ghosts of her namesake wouldn't curse their new ship until she had proven herself.
When will that come, the captain mused to himself as he gazed around the bridge. The stations were all manned — fortunately, Bismarck, like all the ships of the Earth Defence Force, was heavily automated…and could perform much better than what might be expected from the assertion a fictional chief engineer of a starship named Enterprise had once claimed to his commanding officer in a movie from the 1980s — and the crew was alert for any danger even in this relatively quiet part of space.
"Officer of the Watch, new contact!"
"Report!" Becker called out.
The pretty female hauptbootsmann manning the main sensory station looked up from her screen. "Sensors are picking up a ship coming out of warp at the Jupiter orbit line, Lieutenant," she stated. "Initial ID makes her a Kashin-class vessel. She's coming from the direction of the Phentax system and appears to be approaching Earth."
The officers on the bridge tensed. "We're not ready!" the executive officer, Fregattenkapitän Johannes Deitrich, hissed out from the port bridge wing.
"That's enough, Johannes!" Weber snapped. "Sound battle stations! Helm, get us on an intercept course! Let's see if we can scare them away!"
People snapped to attention as a deep gonging echoed through the ship…
Millions of kilometres away…
"Captain!"
"What is it?" the commanding officer of the Holy Lightning snapped as he looked over from his place behind the main flight station on the bridge of the Niphentaxian-built Kashin-class battlewagon that was now on planet-fall approach to Earth.
"Sensors just picked up a ship at the Mars orbit line," the sensory officer stated. Like all members of the so-called "Army of Lum," the Niphentaxian crew aboard the Lightning were all dressed in a uniform that mixed Oni tiger-striping with the model of school uniforms worn at Tomobiki High School. "It just turned this way."
"What type of ship?!" the first officer demanded.
"Unknown, but she's emitting a small field of tachytron radiation from her main drive systems." The sensor officer keyed controls. "I'm moving to do a tactical scan of her now. Estimated time of interception with us, six minutes…"
"The Noukiites?!" the weapons officer wondered.
"Possibly. They're not known to make use of any tech that emits tachytron radiation, though," the captain snarled. "Signal the Neptunian Navy's high command. Find out if they know anything of unauthorised ships in this sector of space."
"Yes, sir!" the communications officer declared…
Bismarck…
"Sir, electronic countermeasures is detecting a signal being sent to Kōri City," the German ship's combat officer, Korvettenkapitän Karolin Schneider — the eldest Avalonian-German now serving aboard — reported. "I've already instituted jamming measures to ensure the enemy vessel cannot send a call back home."
Weber nodded. A month ago, Karolin had been a member of the gun crew of one of the approaching enemy starship's sisterships that had been at the main space anchorage for the "Army of Lum" — a giant space dock near Phentax Twenty-three — when the metahuman warrior named "Infinity" had teleported in a deadly cobalt bomb to detonate same right in the middle of the structure. Fortunately for Karolin and her thousands of sisters being used as slaves aboard the Niphentaxian warship — the Kashin-class battlewagon, of which the Army of Lum had nearly eight hundred of which, normally had over a thousand Avalonians each, assigned always in hazardous duty posts — the woman born Relota Ugadese had teleported them all to the old Sagussan space dockyard now in orbit over Venus and freedom. When the thousands of women had seen the hundreds of ships of the still-growing Earth Defence Force that needed crews, they had immediately volunteered to serve…with many of them, thanks to their experience, being given brevet officer ranks in the various services and assigned to senior posts.
"Life scans?" the captain asked.
Karolin smiled. "Being done now."
"Wonderful…"
"Main Sensory to Pilotage."
Karolin tapped a control. "Pilotage, Schneider."
"Elder Mother, we've detected over two hundred sisters in cryogenetic suspension aboard the target ship," the senior Avalonian-German non-commissioned officer aboard Bismarck, Stabsbootsmann Margarethe Meyer, reported. "Above that, the normal augmentation crew for a Kashin-class. Materialiser crews are at the ready."
"We'll be in range to transport them off in three minutes," Becker declared.
"Stand by on shields," Weber ordered.
"Jawohl!" the bridge crew all snapped…
Holy Lightning…
"The size of a Lecasur's Soul-class star destroyer?!"
"Hai!" the sensory officer stated. "But the electronic signals being emitted from the enemy ship doesn't match any Vosian Defence Force equipment."
"Does it match anything we know of?!" the executive officer demanded.
The younger officer shook his head. "No, sir…"
"Target now in visual range!" the pilot declared.
"On screen!" the captain barked.
People looked…
"What IS that thing?!" the combat officer exclaimed.
"Looks like a Bismarck-class ship."
Eyes locked on the communications officer. "What?!" the captain demanded.
"Bismarck-class. Nazi Germany wet-navy battleship from the Terrans' Second World War," the younger officer stated. "Two ships were built…" She then shook her head. "But if that's actually a Terran ship, how did they…?"
"The Noukiites?!" the first officer demanded.
"Where are the solar sails?" the weapons officer instantly wondered.
"Captain!" the pilot gasped.
People looked again…
…and then many paled as the approaching ship — which had managed to cross the battlewagon's "T" as she approached her — began swinging twelve rather BIG space naval rifles in four triple turrets to aim right at their ship…
"She's stopping, Captain. Her shields are up."
"Will that stop us?" Weber asked.
A shake of the head. "Of course not," Karolin answered as she tried not to give her commanding officer a patented "Are you stupid?" stare.
"Then have the materialiser people fetch your sisters."
"Jawohl, Herr Kapitän," the combat officer said before tapping a control. "Go!"
Throughout the ship — especially in more environmentally unsafe sections such as the engineering sections, the weapons dynamos, power cores and elsewhere — a strange ringing noise echoed through the air as over a thousand young women dressed in clothing that protected them while also showing off their perfect figures to anyone who wanted to leer at them disappeared from view within two seconds. Atop that, the same sort of ringing noise echoed in the main cargo room, where over two hundred cryogenetic storage capsules containing young nude women in perfect preservation also vanished. The only ones of the "normal" crew of Niphentaxians who immediately noticed all the slave workers vanishing were elements of the ship's galley crew, all of whom simply gaped as a dozen or so Avalonians who helped kept the Lighting's hungry crew fed disappeared in swirling showers of energy. Silence fell over the scene for a minute before the senior chef screamed out, and then he lunged for the intercom terminal…
"We got them all?" Weber asked.
"But of course," Karolin replied, smiling knowingly.
"Wonderful!" the captain breathed out. "Signal the alien ship."
"Jawohl!" the communications officer, Oberleutnant zur See Frieda Möller — yet another Avalonian-German who had been a slave a month before — declared…
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT…?!"
"It's true, Captain!" the ship's security officer declared. "All the Avalonians — including the magicals we captured from that school in Scotland — are gone!"
Silence fell as the bridge crew all gaped on hearing that, and then the captain barked out, "HOW?! How in the name of the Goddess can over a thousand…?!"
"Captain!"
"WHAT?!" he shrieked as he glared at the communications officer.
The younger woman wilted. "The alien vessel is hailing us, sir."
"And?!" the first officer snapped.
She tapped a control, which switched the image of the alien starship ahead of the Holy Lightning to a rather large and spacious command platform. On the bridge were a mixture of men and women — all Terrans, the Niphentaxians were quick to notice — in dark blue-and-white uniforms typical of military sailors across Earth. In the middle of the image was a middle-aged man with the four thick stripes and inverted five-point star of a naval captain on his shoulder boards. "Am I speaking to the captain of the Niphentaxian starship now passing through the asteroid belt of this system?" he asked, his words automatically rendered into Japanese — the current "official" language of the people of Phentax Two — by the ship's on-board universal language translators.
The captain gaped. As far as he knew, NO ONE on Earth had learned of his race. The Oni — for whatever reason — had seen fit NOT to tell the Terrans about their allies in the year or so since the Goddess' Migration to the Holy City of Tomobiki.
So how in the Goddess' Name did these people know of them?!
"Who are you?!" the captain then demanded, putting as much of a bite into his voice as he could; he had never been a fleet element commander before the destruction of the Army of Lum and hadn't faced down aliens before. "What ship is that?!"
The other man didn't look impressed by such bluster. "I'm Captain at Sea Emil Weber, commanding officer of the Federal German Starship Bismarck of the United Nations Earth Defence Force," he introduced himself, his words making the Niphentaxians gape. "By the authority vested in me by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1935, passed one month ago in the wake of the discovery of a cobalt bomb that was hidden in the shopping district of the town of Tomobiki in the Metropolitan Prefecture of Tōkyō in the State of Japan by elements of your government — and fortunately removed thanks to the assistance of a citizen of the Free State of Yiziba befo-…"
He blinked as the whole bridge crew screamed out on hearing THAT name…
"Gott im Himmel!" Stefan Becker hissed out. "They're scared of a name?!"
"One of our former masters' many illogical beliefs, Stefan," Frieda replied before she gave Karolin a knowing look. The latter nodded her permission, and then she flashed a look to one of the other Avalonian-Germans on the bridge. That was soon passed to everyone there, and then the communications officer took a deep breath. "Drei…zwei…eins…null!" she chanted out loud before all the girls on Bismarck's bridge began chanting a metre a second, saying a simple three-syllable word.
"YIZIBA! YIZIBA! YIZIBA! YIZIBA! YIZIBA! YIZIBA! YIZIBA…!"
"THEY'RE SCREAMING THE FORBIDDEN NAME!"
"THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL US ALL!"
"GET US OUT OF HERE!"
The pilot keyed controls as the Holy Lighting spun around on her long axis and raced away from the Bismarck, cutting in warp drive seconds later to vanish as she made the fifty light-year run back to the Phentax system as fast as she could go…
"Alright! Enough, ladies! They're gone!"
Laughter echoed over the German starship's bridge as people calmed down, and then Weber turned to gaze on his officer of the watch. "Get us back to our patrol station, Stefan," he ordered. "I'll have to make a call into New York."
"Jawohl, Herr Kapitän!" the younger officer said as we…
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Mon, 05 Mar 2012 01:50)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.