Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth5 (section)

===Part 1===

Q1. What do we do now?


A boutique in the Izanami’s cruise ship area had swimsuits. As well as swim rings and rubber boats. Mikoto took a liking to a bright pink one-piece swimsuit with a lot of frills. The frills were the best part. Because they obscured the small size of her chest. And so Misaka Mikoto was floating face up in the pool, lost in thought.

It was night.

The dark sky plus the night pool’s underwater lighting created a super grown up atmosphere.

“We could fight the Empire and win. We have our own Shinshin and F-2As plus the captured Girlish Weapons: YF-22A, four F-14Ds, four F-15Cs, three F/A-18Es, and three F-117As. With that much at our disposal…”

“You’re just being silly now. All that isn’t enough to fill a single ordinary carrier. How many warship girls did we see on standby at their capital’s harbor? If they send those after us, we’re done. They would overwhelm us with numbers ability.”

Shokuhou Misaki had also changed into a swimsuit and was floating in the same pool. Hers was all thin strings and looked more like something you would be forced to wear after losing a bet. She was lying face down on a rectangular air mattress floating in the water. While kicking her feet.

Why even bother changing into a swimsuit and visiting the pool if you weren’t going to let a single drop of water touch you?

(Also…)

A normal carrier, huh?

The Izanami had a lot of its space taken up by the unnecessary decorations making it a “camouflaged” carrier, but the bigger problem was that the Tokiwadai students numbered less than 200. A normal carrier would have a crew of thousands.

They had a fair number of the (non-girl) F-2As, but they were hopelessly short on pilots. Even with so much handled electronically, it was honestly something of a miracle they could run the carrier with less than 200, so they just didn’t have people to spare on the fighters.

Mikoto kicked some water into the air as she floated on her back.

“We can stay away from the continent and travel by sea as much as possible. We can produce water fuel, vegetables, and even chicken eggs, so we don’t need to return to land. Once we’re out of flight range for fighters loaded with anti-ship missiles, we’ll be safe. In this case, heading as far south as possible might be best.”

“That is better than all-out war, but I don’t think it will be that easy. The flight range is a meaningless calculation. Our ships can’t outrun them if they send a strategic bomber built for long-range attacks across national borders and to the other side of the continent.”

They had held this discussion a few times already.

And they still hadn’t arrived at an answer.

(Even with the top brass brainwashed,) they had already lost the best option of a ceasefire and peace with the Empire. That meant going for the next best option, but did that mean fighting or running? Could they escape if they kept moving, or could they hide somewhere and go unnoticed?

26 days remained.

They still hadn’t decided on a general plan, so for now they were just getting the ships away from the continent.

However, if the Empire had an airbase on a remote island like Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean, they could be cruising right up to an enemy nest. Mikoto and the others did not have a complete grasp of this world’s map or power balance.

“Still, at least they didn’t launch a bunch of nuclear ballistic missiles our way. If they had made a nuclear attack as soon as we were far enough away from the continent, this all would’ve been over.”

“They really aren’t going to do that, right?”

“I did spy on all the residual thoughts left in the international meeting hall, which is full of plotting day in and day out☆” The #5 winked while squashing her boobs between herself and the air mattress. “Apparently the three major powers have agreed to something called the Triangle Pact. To prevent an accidental nuclear war, they have made it so at least two countries need to input a launch code to launch any of their ballistic missiles, nuclear or otherwise. Of course, if one country gets pissed and suggests using them, the discussions will fall into chaos and they’ll never reach an agreement, so the pact effectively prevents any nuclear warheads or missiles from ever being used no matter how many they’ve made.”

So if one of the major powers began a destructive rampage, the other two could then instantly crush them.

Mikoto was honestly impressed by that. It was a far more peaceful way of putting a lock on nukes than the sloppy management of Earth’s mutually assured destruction. She wished the UN’s VIPs could learn a thing or two from this way of including the disagreements between major powers in the calculations for keeping the peace.

So…

“That means we don’t have to worry about any nuclear ICBM attacks.”

“Of course, that isn’t the only threat.” Shokuhou brushed back her long blonde hair as she lay on the floating air mattress. “If only we could speed up the countdown on that device aboard the Izanagi.”

“Or remove it from its pedestal and carry it around with us. The Izanami and Izanagi are too big for us to buy time with a game of hide-and-seek.”

That said, the return device(?) probably required power from the giant ship to function. They didn’t want to remove it and restart it only to find the countdown had reverted to the beginning.

But anyway…

“The biggest threat for now would be a strategic bomber that can fly more than 10 thousand kilometers.”

“Probably so,” said Shokuhou.

“Especially a stealth one. The ships’ early-warning radar could miss its approach, so our only option is to keep a few planes in the air on shifts.”