Editing City Series:Volume6d Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

The concrete hangar was tall, wide, and windowless.

It was located below Hamburg Base.

The enclosed space echoed with the rumble of transport vehicles, the sparks of welding, and the scraping of automatic files.

The underground Grösse Panzer hangar had columns connecting floor to ceiling and a lot of equipment lifts on the walls.

One of the suspended platforms on the north wall was very noisy. Hanging from that raised platform was a white Grösse Panzer – the Neue Kaiser – and ten or so maintenance soldiers were working on it.

The wings had been removed from its back for maintenance.

The maintenance soldiers were in constant motion around Neue Kaiser, but someone else stood motionless nearby.

That person was Alfred. He wore a blue jumpsuit and stood next to the Grösse Panzer Werkzeug hanging from a hanger next to the suspended platform. He viewed the white sword with a blade nearly 4 yards long.

“Good,” he muttered before viewing his surroundings.

A polisher the size of a thick dictionary was attached to the bottom of the hanger. He picked up the stone and metal device in one hand and pressed the curved polishing surface against the blade.

He walked and pushed on the device to polish the blade. Sparks flew.

“It was more damaged than I thought.”

Then he walked backwards and pulled on the device to continue polishing.

Suddenly, he looked to the platform where the workers were holding a meeting on Neue Kaiser’s back. They were discussing how to adjust for a part of the plans they didn’t understand.

Alfred did not interrupt and continued polishing the sword.

Neue Kaiser’s secondary cockpit was still open.

Viewed from below, he could see a white line in the secondary cockpit’s ceiling. That was Rein König.

He looked back to the larger sword he was polishing and raised the scratchy voice of his artificial vocal cords.

“That Rein König is the same one the one-armed young man took from the Messiah and lent to the emperor. And then the emperor gave it to my ancestor…in response to a selfish request.”

He looked to the sword he was polishing.

“But you are only designed to look like that one.”

Sparks flew from the polisher.

“But that does not make you second best. Because I reforged you with my Busting four years ago after you were sliced through.”

He continued polishing through the sparks. The polisher caught a few times, but he pushed and pulled it through every time.

Hearing a voice calling him from the suspended platform, he looked up to see a soldier trying to work inside the secondary cockpit was pointing at Rein König.

“Lieutenant! I’m sorry, but could you please remove this? I am trying to work on the ceiling portion.”

“Remove it yourself and bring it to me.”

“B-but I can’t do that!”

“What, you aren’t interested in making light of a millennium of history? Just toss it my way if you want.”

Alfred set down the polisher and walked over. He grabbed the thruster sticking out from Neue Kaiser’s leg armor and made a light leap that carried him all the way up to the secondary cockpit entrance.

Once inside, he reached over the flustered soldier’s head and removed Rein König.

He answered the soldier’s thanks with a nod and then hopped down.

After landing, he raised Rein König toward the soldier looking down from the bottom of the secondary cockpit.

“Take good care of it.”

With that, he walked back toward the larger sword.

But he was interrupted by a voice from a speaker.

“Is Neue Kaiser doing well, Lieutenant Maldrick?”

The voice shook the underground space as a large form approached.

The giant green Grösse Panzer was in fact Army Division Chief Karl Schmitt. He kept his knee joints bent and used the plastic continuous tracks on his legs to slowly turn and walk.

Even ducking down, his head nearly hit the ceiling, so he felt like an entire building moving around.

The green giant stopped in front of Alfred.

“On your way up top, Chief?” asked Alfred.

“An entire underground hangar was cleared out for my personal use, so I am moving there. Where is your partner?”

“Our commander showed up earlier and took him away. She wants to set up an audience with the Messiah tonight and said she has a lot to tell her now.”

“The audience, huh? It’s at midnight like usual, isn’t it?”

“Is the Deputy Chief working on that too?”

“Yes, she said she was getting dressed up in preparation for the audience. What about you?”

Alfred shook his head.

“I’m sitting this one out.”

“Because Sir Heiliger is there? I hear you protested after capturing the Messiah last night.” Karl paused for a sigh that his machine body could not perform. “Try not to be so stubborn. We have more personnel and more problems than when Sir Graham was in charge, but most everyone has a high opinion of Sir Heiliger’s work here.”

“Only cause he’s kind to his men and has kept mission losses down to record lows.”

“Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

Alfred took a look around. None of the workers paid him any heed. The hangar was full of motion. He hung his head a little but raised it almost immediately afterwards.

“He sees us like a family. I bet we’re filling the hole left by the wife and child he threw out. But we’re soldiers.” Before continuing, Alfred held Rein König aloft. “We still haven’t answered the questions Sir Graham left us with. We don’t need some great Messiah and we don’t need kindness or record low losses.” He lowered his voice. “And we don’t need to do harm while trying to protect something either. We need something else.”

He lowered Rein König and let it hang at his side.

Instead, he clenched his left hand. The hand with a red ring on the middle finger.

“At this rate, we’re just going to see a second Cologne.”

“We do have intel of another major bombing in the works. Bombers are gathering at an airfield on the UK’s eastern coast. Their rumored target is either Hamburg or Berlin.”

Alfred looked up when he heard that. The green Grösse Panzer was looking down at him.

“It is possible you will end up proving the thing you can’t bring yourself to put to words here,” said its vocal device. “Proving it to us, I mean.”