We all headed down to see the ancient battleship.
I brought the Pomeranian along to the underground facility. It was about time the little girl had a proper name.
We found a separate set of stairs leading down. I made it a point to never use the elevators; they were bound to be broken, and getting stuck in one would be a nightmare.
The underground facility was several times larger than I had initially imagined. Judging by the direction, it seemed to extend deep beneath the village itself.
And there it was: the battleship.
Old forklifts meant for loading and unloading sat nearby. However, they appeared to use a different energy specification, as the connectors were incompatible with our gear. It didn't look like we could move them. As for the terminals, analyzing them would be impossible without Fairy.
I turned my attention back to the ship.
Hope.
The name was written clearly on the hull. So that was the name of the vessel.
Wait a second. That wasn't the Latarnia Language. It was written in Kanji. Japanese? At the very least, it was an East Asian-descended language.
"What is this?" Berger-san asked.
"The Galactic Empire Official Language... probably," I replied.
Since there wasn't any Hiragana, I couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but it was almost certainly the Empire's tongue. In other words, Japanese.
"Is there evidence that the Galactic Empire expanded this far in the past?" Berger-san wondered aloud.
"No, I suspect our ancestors were simply the same."
I shared this cruel truth with him. I had a feeling that races like the Proone or the various species in the Battle Dome—the ones that couldn't interbreed—were the products of ancient biological experiments. The people with octopuses in head-tanks were likely a different lineage as well.
But the Latarnia types and other humanoids? They likely originated from the same stock as the Galactic Empire People. In fact, I suspected that the Ancient People, like Berger-san, and the people of the Empire were one and the same race.
"This... is stirring," Berger-san murmured.
I decided to leave the deep thinking to him. My job was to see if this ship would still fly and to gather whatever data I could.
"Woof!"
The Pomeranian triggered an authentication sensor installed low to the floor. A door slid open, revealing an automated staircase.
"What’s the move, Leo?" Rikochi asked.
"We have to go in, obviously."
The moment I spoke, the Imperial Guard Knights and soldiers rushed inside ahead of me.
"Look at that! They left the Captain in the dust!" Melissa crowed, laughing hysterically at the sight. Eddy just looked on with his usual expression of utter exhaustion.
"Well, they’re just securing the perimeter for us. Let’s go."
"Yeah, yeah, my King. Your wish is my command," Eddy said, sounding as lazy as ever.
The interior was incredibly rugged. It felt like a pure weapon of war. The total lack of concern for living space suggested one thing.
"They probably didn't finish the interior work in time," I noted.
"At least that means it hasn't deteriorated," someone added.
Even without synthetic fibers or resins, materials tend to break down over the centuries. Because it was so bare-bones, there wasn't much to decay. We didn't even have to sweep.
"The windows have cracks in them, too."
In the modern Galactic Empire, the standard is to project camera feeds from the exterior onto the hallway walls to simulate windows. It’s much easier to just replace a camera. The current design philosophy focuses on minimizing physical contact and making everything modular; if a section breaks, you just swap the whole block.
That was why repairs remained possible even with the meager production capacity of a Shaping Printer. Broken components were simply tossed into a Reduction Furnace to be recycled into raw materials. Of course, a dedicated factory was faster, cheaper, and produced sturdier results, but for field repairs, even a student could manage.
In fact, that was how we had managed to stay afloat during our voyage. We had even dumped Zork shells into the Reduction Furnace to use as raw materials.
This ship was clearly a model from an era before those production systems were standardized. But just because it was primitive in some ways didn't mean it was useless. The Galactic Empire had spent centuries doing nothing but hunting Pirates, which meant our offensive weaponry had stagnated for ages.
Latarnia’s missile tech was generations ahead of ours. The Taikyoku Nation's beam weaponry was incredible, and the production techniques for consumables in Chronos and Lepsitol were monstrous. Our Galactic Empire only managed to stay competitive through the superior balance of our Humanoid Fighters and our rather insane methods for training soldiers and pilots.
That, and the fact that our medical tech was the Empire's Strongest.
In short, ancient weapons were not to be underestimated. The Linear Blazer, for instance, was originally just heavy construction equipment, yet it was terrifyingly powerful when repurposed for combat. We could use our current tech to fix whatever was broken here. Though, after a full overhaul, it would probably be a completely different beast.
We reached the Bridge. There, I found a Jester authentication device.
"May I?" I asked.
Please, go ahead.
"Authenticating... Hope," a voice announced. The speakers were clearly shot; the audio was riddled with static.
I started by checking the manuals on the computer. After confirming the port types, I fabricated a connector, plugged in my terminal, and set it to Emulator Mode to begin the download. I was worried about security, but the data flowed freely.
The security was surprisingly lax—or perhaps Fairy was just that much of an anomaly. I finished saving the battleship's blueprints, specifications, and the Humanoid Fighter Data into my storage. There was no need to actually start the ship yet, so we headed back out.
Once outside, I handed the data over to Kyoko-chan. She had been barred from entering until the area was confirmed safe. If something happened to her, our engineering department would be finished.
Kyoko-chan was practically vibrating with excitement. She’d likely be pulling all-nighters to analyze this for the foreseeable future.
"Your Majesty... I’m going to build the strongest machine ever!" Her eyes were wild.
"Well, we don't even know if it’s usable yet... Ah, right. Good luck."
She was already staring at the blueprints with bloodshot eyes. I knew better than to say anything else.
"Eddy, sorry, but I need you to speed up the construction of the Orbital Elevator."
"Got it. I'll have my subordinates send over a formal Incident Report."
"Rikochi. As the Military Police, I need you to search for the suspect's remains. But don't push it during the blizzards. Most of the bears are probably gone anyway since the mountain collapsed."
The thought that so many lives might have been lost in the chaos without me even knowing was a chilling one.
Finally, I dropped the Pomeranian off with Helga-san at the dock.
"We really need to give her a name," I said.
"Woof!"
A name, huh?
"How about Cotton Candy?"
"Grrrrrrr!"
She clearly didn't like that one. This girl was sharp.
"She’s so fluffy and soft... were there any food names that fit?"
"Gyan! Wan-wan-wan-uuuuuu!"
Helga-san laughed. "She says don't name her after food."
"Fine. Then... Pochi."
"Grrrrrrr!? Gyan!"
She got incredibly angry at that. She definitely understood what I was saying.
"Okay, okay. How about Maron? Because you're brown."
"Kyu?"
"She says, 'Is that the best you've got?'"
"Momo."
The Pomeranian actually seemed to consider it. This little brat clearly had no intention of moving away from food names after all. She was looking at me like she'd bite my head off if I didn't get it right.
"Woof!"
"She says, 'I'll allow it.'"
So, Momo-chan it was. A very opinionated Pomeranian girl.