Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

South of Japan in the Pacific, 1000km from the Port of Kobe, gray shapes were floating on the blue. That was the coalition force’s joint fleet gathered to fight the Threat. The fleet was mostly composed of nuclear aircraft carriers with some cruisers and destroyers mixed in for good measure. There were of course plenty of submarines waiting below the water as well.

It was all technology designed to kill other people.

They had been left behind by the times as focus was placed on combating the Threat, so now all that precision machinery had nothing to do.

A male marshaller with swarthy skin and clear-cut facial features sat on the edge of an aircraft carrier flight deck larger than a schoolyard. He spoke up in annoyance while swinging a fishing rod.

“It’s ironic, really.”

“That we’re working alongside the US and China here?”

This many ships could gather anywhere in the world if they needed to.

He just about said as much, but the middle-aged marshaller held his tongue because there was no point in telling that to the female mechanic younger than his own kids. A mobile fleet sounded nice and all, but they could only travel so far in a single day without resupplying. A cruise circumnavigating the globe while stopping at plenty of ports to resupply would take around 70 to 80 days to complete its trip around the world.

Yet all these warships had gathered here so quickly.

The Threat had been noticed gathering on Second Grimnoah toward the end of Japan’s Golden Week holiday and all these ships were floating here at sea not too long afterwards. A fleet sent out from Chennai or San Francisco would not have arrived so quickly.

“Good grief.”

They were to work together as they fought the Threat. And they were to give what help they could to the cutting-edge magicians. It all sounded admirable enough, but this had clearly been secretly prepared in advance. The people could not trust each other.

(We were a little ''too'' well prepared for this.)

The middle-aged marshaller kept these thoughts to himself.

(Almost like they knew in advance ''where the damn Threat would attack''.)

“No, that’s crazy talk.”

“What is, sir?”

The marshaller did not answer the STEM girl’s question.

“Get ready. The main dish is the Pinaka III to be launched from a nuclear sub, but that doesn’t mean our carrier has nothing to do. This will be our F/A Vajra stealth fighter’s first use in actual combat. If the Pinaka III fails to hit its target, one of those will approach while skimming just off the ocean surface and loaded with a small nuke. And all the radiation it’s giving off is guaranteed to cause malfunctions in its instruments. Even the smallest scratch while taking off could be deadly.”

“Do you think they really will choose to use nukes?”

“Don’t ask me. That’s for the higher ups to decide.”

“Hm? You don’t look happy about this.”

“The Pinaka III is a torpedo, but it’s classified as a Space Force weapon cause they control the generator satellites up above. We’re talking about some eggheads who sit in an air-conditioned office typing away at a keyboard all day. They’ve never seen a lick of combat and we’re supposed to trust them?”

“All of our nukes are being consolidated under the elites of the Space Force, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, those trump cards are in the hands of some scrawny guys who can’t even do ten pushups.”

The “higher ups” he mentioned was not a reference to the Grimnoah students fighting on the front line. He meant the higher ups who commanded the aircraft carrier. And if they said to do it, he and the others like him would have to input the nuclear launch codes.

(The economic center has moved to the Asian continent, so no one gives a crap about Japan anymore. What an age we live in.)

Japan had spent unthinkable amounts of funding in order to protect this American sea lane, but now the coalition fleet gathered there was going to launch a nuke at them. It really was ironic. The Japanese government was surely sending a flood of complaints, but those would never reach the higher ups here. The pieces on the board were not moved after a one-on-one discussion. Some low-level government official would be blocking all those complaints while stifling a yawn.

The young female mechanic held a hand over her eyes and stared at the horizon as if that would help her see past it.

“Is Letnahe okay?”

“Call her Lieutenant Colonel Kurent.”

“I really hope Let is okay. She might know the Japanese language and school system after studying abroad there, but isn’t she completely isolated while surrounded by the world’s strongest magicians? The negotiations can’t be easy and what if she can’t escape in time?”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” The dark-skinned marshaller sighed softly. “Lieutenant Colonel Kurent ''is top class when it comes to skill in the deadly arts.'' Even in a world with magicians in it. You called it negotiations, but it’s really a countdown until she gets pissed at Grimnoah.”

He felt a tug at his fishing rod.

He reeled it in to find a dark and glistening object nothing like any aquatic lifeform found in the natural world. No one could say how far the Threat had spread below the water. His young subordinate fell over in surprise and clung to him, but he checked to find it was only a boot.

The secrets of the world were not found that easily.

“Grimnoah just has to make one mistake and we’re launching that thing. And as a mechanic, you must know that completing a mission without even the slightest mistake is simply not possible.”