READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 2: Setting up - 02
Sinking, that's what I feel right now—warm currents washing over my skin as I open my eyes and see rays of sunlight above the water's surface.
"Okay, so where am I?" I said aloud, somehow underwater as air bubbles floated upward. I tried to breathe, curious if I had an air scrubber, but I had kind of forgotten about it while making the submarine... oops.
Anyway, it turns out I can breathe underwater just fine. Can I summon my rigging? I thought about it, and sure enough, a mental command worked as expected.
"Now, let's ascend… Wait. Now that I think about it, I'm female?" I said looking at myself then shaking my head "That for later. Let's focus on where I am first, and I can have my gender meltdown later." I adjusted my rigging upward using the handlebars, and the propellers spun, bringing me forward.
"How many knots? Fifteen? All sensors are connected to my mental facility—nice." Soon, I surfaced, gazing at the sun and taking in my surroundings.
"The time says it's 9 AM? Do my clocks even sync with this world's time? Hopefully, they do. Then, by comparing my location with UTC time, the sun, and a compass, I can estimate where I am." I thought I had figured out how to do the calculations, though I did feel a little fuzzy on the details, as I hadn't read up on it in a while. Anyway, I guessed I was somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, maybe in the Pacific? Well, that's fine—there are plenty of places to turn into an underwater base, especially since the depth here seems deep enough.
"Wait, when am I...?" I said, suddenly realizing I had forgotten something important. "Shit" I quickly dove down on my rigging. "I forgot the USA in this world has Spy satellites around the planet surrounding the planet. Did I get detected? Hopefully not."
I pondered, "Wait, didn't Epsilon have a base in Antarctica? Maybe I'll go there to check where in the timeline am I. Hopefully, the campaign hasn't started yet, or I won't have time to build up." I dove deeper, heading toward a depth of around 1500 meters.
"Kinda forgot to think about crush depth. How forgetful am I when designing this body? Hopefully, Fleet of Fog tech can handle the increased pressure," I mused as I dove even deeper to around 2000 meters and headed north to find a suitable location for building my base.
After quite some time...
Nothing good so far. I was being a bit stingy about choosing a base location—kind of like when I play Minecraft. But a beggar can't be a chooser, so I picked a random ledge and decided to start base building there.
I chose one that led deeper into a chasm and found a ledge. I began to dig underneath using my nanobots. I tried to control them like I would in Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, but in 3D. I sat on my rigging, deep in thought. "I'm a girl now—how weird is that? I'm also an AI. I always wanted to be a girl, but it's kind of sudden, and I chose this world of all the war-filled worlds that didn't go full on sci fi. Did I not think about time travel shenanigans, mass mind control, and Soviet bases on the moon?" I sighed and calmed myself down. "Okay, happy thoughts... distraction. Let's see if I can come up with a flag or logo design for my faction."
"Wait, didn't I have a designer app?" I asked, mentally calling up anything related to design within my AI. A simulation appeared, resembling an advanced Unity UI, complete with its own programming language and a converter from C#, which I loved to use.
"Let's start basic," I said, creating an empty 2D template to design my flag. Underwater, stealth, expansion, progress... "You know what? Just use double gears spinning underneath a wave symbol."
"That's very lame, yeah. But I can't think of anything, so let's move on to 3D design." I switched to the 3D template, which was already set up with underwater simulation.
"Cool. Let's see what I need," I muttered as something pinged me.
"Well, the excavation is complete. Let's see if I can strengthen the ledge and ceiling first," I said as I directed my nanomachines to mix iron and other materials found while excavating into the pre-existing ceiling and ledge structure without changing their appearance too much.
Then, I started creating a pressurized chamber, similar to the one in Subnautica, where the bottom of the vehicle bay doesn't need to be sealed off for the structure to be airtight. I copied that design and created an empty space under the ledge, large enough for submarines (like myself) to enter and exit the ocean. Now, I had to design the space to accommodate an actual large ship. Let's see... 800 meters long should be enough, right? Two ships long, then 500 meters wide, with a ceiling of 400 meters. Well, it's just a structure, so I'll let the nanomachines do the excavation and reinforcement.
"Okay, let's go back to design as I want something to speeding up construction. MCVs exist here, right? Still, I wonder if I can just make a mobile MCV, as I am one already with how I'm building this place." I brought the 3D project back up and began designing a new component: a "Nanoswarm Deployer." I planned for it to be scalable, with a maximum capacity of around 2 million nanomachines, a power supply, and an energy transfer system inside a 4x2x2 meter box. Stacking four in a line, two in width, and mirroring it on the other side, I ended up with the bottom of a submarine MCV, technically containing 8 million nanobots—more than the 2 million the Blue Steel ship has by default, assuming it wasn't a scavenging ship... though I wasn't sure of its specifications.
"Wait, shouldn't this come with an R&D section?" I muttered as I explored the program's tools. Nope, not in editor mode, not in simulator mode either, and 'copy mode'? Maybe it could work with foreign designs... but still not what I wanted. "Research mode [locked]?" I checked. "Huh, why's it locked? Let's see..."
[Research mode requires a physical lab to start researching, as it draws computational power and energy extensively.]
"More base building, then," I sighed as I went back to designing my MCV submarine. Standard dual nuclear fusion reactors, smaller—around 45 meters long, 15 meters wide, and 12 meters tall. As for weaponry, two PD graviton tech systems should be enough. If I remember correctly, C-RAM just needs a sensor suite, so I swapped the auto cannon for a rapid-fire graviton laser and scaled it up to match the firing speed of an actual C-RAM. That should be enough for underwater combat and anti-torpedo defense, though it'll be a bit slow with a max speed of around 30 knots underwater. Still, that should be enough.
I saved the design... [New unit registered... calculating.]
[Creating 3D image... generating...]
Okay, so she's tiny. I'm pretty sure if Ark Royal were here, she will been thrown into jail from harassment or whatever, although not sure if she will act the same on submarines and not destroyers.
Anyway, the MCV had rigging similar to mine, but with 8 container units on each side of her surfboard rigging—16 units total. Her PD turrets were at the front and back of the rigging, offering nearly 360-degree protection. She had black hair, and her swimsuit had glowing blue neon lines on it.
[Submarine MCV - Unnamed faction
Cost: $3,000 x 10 (Wargirls)
Speed: 3
Hitpoints: 3000 + 1000 (Wargirls)
Armor Class: Heavy
Prerequisite: Unnamed faction's Wisdom Cube factory + Unnamed faction's Underwater Shipyard
Purpose: Base Construction
Weapons: 2 Graviton PD turrets
Range: 4 & 4
Additional Information: Building and Repair structures, Vehicles and T-doll. Cannot be hijacked. Immune to abduction, omni-crush, mind control, and confusion rays. Driver cannot be killed. Automatically repairs itself.]
"... I forgot to name my faction and forgot to name the submarine, but why is it so expensive? I remember MCVs being around $3,000, so why is this 10 times that?" I facepalmed and then thought about a name for both my faction and this unit.
"Let's see... Aqua class? Nah, too useless of a name to fit a major role. I mean, MCVs can't fight, so... wait, why am I naming units when I plan to mass-produce them? I mean I do want the first of every unit to have a custom name, though... you know what, Hestia it is." I typed the name in.
"Okay, now for the faction name."
"There are four main factions in this world—three minor factions for each of them: First, the Allies with the United States of America, European Alliance, and Pacific Front; second, the Soviet Union with Russia, the Latin Confederation, and China; third, Epsilon with PsiCorps, Scorpion Cell, and Epsilon Headquarters; and the fourth faction, which shouldn't exist yet, FOEHN Revolt with Haihead, Wings of Coronia, and Last Bastion." I paused, thinking about my faction name.
"I'm lacking ideas... so why not go with what I already am?" I typed in "Wargirls" as the faction name. "For the three subfactions, that's easy. Kansen (Shipgirls), Tank Girls, and Plane Girls... still need names for the latter two, though. I'm pretty sure Strike Witches and Panzer Waltz have names for those girls not that I can remember much."
I sighed and decided to wait for the construction to finish so I could start the tech tree.
"While waiting, let's see if I can somehow generate resources..." I opened the Designer tool again to see what it already had in terms of blueprints.
[Wargirls Faction - 1 blueprint found]
[Hestia Class MCV - Kansen - Wargirls faction]
"... So no freebies..." I chuckled, feeling both pleased and annoyed at the same time. Pleased that I could design anything I wanted, but annoyed that I didn't have a head start.
Anyway, I began designing reactors and resource-gathering buildings, I pretty sure that those two would be early in the tech tree. Wait, I just remembered there are also barracks... are there gun girls? Ah, 'Girl Frontline'—now I remember. I'll make these three building designs components so I can fit them into the underwater base first. I'll make standalone versions later.
{NEW unit, this chapter}
[Hestia Class Submarine MCV - Kansen - Wargirl]
Cost: $30,000
Speed: 3
Hitpoints: 4000
Armor Class: Heavy
Prerequisite: Wargirl's Wisdom Cube factory + Wargirl's Underwater Shipyard
Purpose: Base Construction
Weapons: 2 Graviton PD turrets
Range: 4 & 4
Additional Information: Building and Repair structures, Vehicles and T-doll. Cannot be hijacked. Immune to abduction, omni-crush, mind control, and confusion rays. Driver cannot be killed. Automatically repairs itself.]