The bridge had enough seats for Koutarou’s crew. There were only a few spare seats aside from those. Just like the old Blue Knight, battleships had been made to be operated by only a few people. That was in large part thanks to the development of artificial intelligence, and it was also the reason the AI had been transferred from the old Blue Knight. They needed an AI that had learned how they worked the ship, which was why the bridge was more or less the same size as before.
“That said, this is still expected to serve as the flagship of a fleet and the command center for an expedition,” Ruth added. “That’s why there is a subbridge right below, which is as large as you were expecting, Mackenzie-sama.”
She projected footage of the subbridge for Kenji to see. It was as large as a wedding hall and would be able to serve as the command room for the Imperial Army. However, it was much too large for them alone to use—given the size of the room, one would have to shout to reach someone on the other side.
“Wouldn’t that make this the subbridge, then?” Shizuka wondered. From her point of view, the functions made the subbridge below them the actual bridge, while the one they were on seemed more like it was just for them.
“Most astute, Shizuka,” Clan said. “You know your way around buildings. The architect had exactly what you said in mind when creating the design. These rooms were named accordingly, but Elfaria-san changed the names.”
Clan looked at Elfaria sitting in the seat reserved for the empress. The original design had called the subbridge the main bridge. Like Shizuka had said, their designations had been flipped. The designer had naturally thought that the larger bridge was the main room, but Elfaria had overruled that call.
“Elfaria-san did?” Shizuka asked.
“You meddled with something weird again, didn’t you?” Koutarou said in exasperation. Elfaria had been interfering in all sorts of issues regarding the new Blue Knight.
“You may say that, Koutarou-sama,” she replied with a somewhat troubled smile, “but keeping those original designations would have caused confusion.”
“What do you mean?”
Elfaria explained: The new ship was intended to fight alongside a fleet, so making a local rule that the subbridge must be contacted first would cause confusion. Even if everyone was aware of the rule, operators might still hesitate for a moment. That was why changing the main and subbridge to what would be more commonly used would reduce confusion. So it wasn’t just something Elfaria had thought up and changed for no reason.
“I guess so. Sorry for doubting you,” Koutarou said.
“Not at all; I don’t mind,” Elfaria answered.
“Liar! That’s the face you make when you’re thinking something bad!” Koutarou shouted.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Elfaria replied with a composed expression.
But there was actually another reason the bridges had been split in two. Koutarou’s group had magic and spiritual energy technology that they would rather not show their allies, if possible. So they needed to split the bridges to have secret talks. They also didn’t want the soldiers to see Koutarou in distress. Mentally, he was still a young man with plenty of troubles, and his heart could get hurt in battle. So it was a necessary measure to settle things with only the people on the bridge and make sure that the usual Koutarou was the one shown to the outside world. But Elfaria would never tell Koutarou that.
“Sorry to disturb you while you’re talking, master,” Ruth spoke up. “We just received the signal from the ceremony committee on the surface. The merge will begin in thirty seconds.”
A message had come in from the committee managing the ceremony on the surface. As the new Blue Knight was launching, there had been an introduction to the history of Forthorthe, as well as the history of the construction of the new Blue Knight. That introduction had just finished, and it was time for the Blue Knight to merge.
“I approve the merge,” Koutarou said.
“Understood. I will begin the process,” Ruth replied.
“As you wish, Your Excellency. Changing system link mode from synchronous mode to merge mode. Commencing laser measurement. All vessels are moving to their initial positions,” the AI reported.
The Blue Knight was merging and transforming. It began by measuring and making minute adjustments.
“It’s kind of slow, isn’t it?” Yurika remarked.
“This is not what I was expecting! It should be snappier!” Sanae complained.
Like they’d said, the Blue Knight’s merge was very slow. The five parts were slowly drifting in the hologram monitors. Being used to merging scenes from robot anime, Yurika and Sanae thought the speed left much to be desired.
“Sorry for not living up to your expectations,” Kiriha apologized. “There are reasons for this.” Ruth and Clan had their hands full with the merging process, so she took over the explanation.
“Reasons?” Sanae asked.
“Like what?” Yurika tilted her head.
Both of them gave Kiriha a perplexed look.
In response, Kiriha smiled and explained. “They are actually merging at an extremely fast speed.”
“But they’re going so slow,” Sanae pointed out.
“That’s what it looks like to me too,” Yurika agreed with a nod.
“That’s because they are too big,” Kiriha explained. “This ship is dozens of times bigger than a giant robot. That’s why the speed looks like it’s dozens of times slower.”
“Really?!” Sanae exclaimed.
“They are actually moving at hundreds of kilometers per hour,” Kiriha said.
“Wow, I didn’t know that...” Yurika said with a nod, impressed.
Now that they thought about it, large objects did look like they moved slowly, like the sun or moon. The Blue Knight was the same, and because of its size, the perceived speed was lower. In other words, it was merging at the speed of giant robots, but it didn’t look like it.
“In order to show you what you want to see, the parts would have to move faster than Mach 10,” Kiriha said.
“So it’s impossible,” Sanae replied, resigned.
“Yeah...Mach 10 is just too fast...” Yurika sighed.
Even they knew that merging at ten times the speed of sound was impossible. They exchanged looks and smiled bitterly.
“The engineers are trying their best,” Kiriha said. “It may look slow, but it’s pretty much a miracle to merge at speeds like this.”
“Yeah, I can tell that Clan and Ruth are doing their best,” Sanae said with a nod.
“It must be really hard to move big things...” Yurika agreed.
The merging was supported by the engineers’ untiring devotion. As proof of that, Clan and Ruth didn’t have any time to talk with Sanae and Yurika. Even on Earth, accidents with tankers colliding made it clear that they were extremely hard to steer. In order for a tanker to make a right angle turn, they needed to move the rudder a kilometer beforehand. If even some momentum remained, the tremendous masses would crash into each other and destroy both ships. In other words, on a larger scale, maneuvering required anticipating the future, while on a smaller scale, it required delicate control. Forthorthe had spatial distortion technology that supported the merging. But even then, the speed at which the Blue Knight was being put together was practically miraculous.
“I learned something new today,” Sanae said. “In order to have a cool merging scene, there’s a limit to how big the robot can be!”
“What a shame,” Yurika said. “But...you don’t seem very depressed about it, Sanae-chan.”
“I still have the hope called Sun Fighter left!” Sanae exclaimed.
“Oh! There is still thaaat!” Yurika exclaimed.
The new Blue Knight’s merging hadn’t been as cool as they had hoped. But there was still the Sun Fighter that the Sun Rangers had on Earth. The two hadn’t given up hope yet—surely that merging scene would be cool.
While the pair talked, Ruth and Clan were taking the lead to merge the Blue Knight.
“Beginning merging of the arms,” Ruth reported. “Three, two, one...contact.”
“Arms are stable at the proper position,” Clan added. “Safety device activated. Locking each part. Engaging system.”
The arms were using the thrusters to make fine adjustments for the approach of the torso, which was relatively stationary. The torso received them using a distortion field, guiding them to the correct locations and slowing them down. As the relative speed between the arms and torso neared zero, they physically connected, and the arms were safely fixed to the main ship. Incidentally, the arms had been merged first because weight was added to either side of the Blue Knight, meaning that the torso practically didn’t move. Only some minor adjustments would be enough to move on to merging the legs.
“System linked to arm parts established. All operations functioning normally,” the AI reported.
“Next are the legs!” Clan said.
“Adjustments of relative speed complete, Princess. You can proceed when you are ready,” the AI said.
“Beginning merging of the legs,” Ruth stated. “Three, two, one...contact!”
“Legs are stable at the proper position,” Clan confirmed. “Safety device activated. Locking each part. Engage!”
If the legs had been merged first, things would have been different. Since both legs merged diagonally at the end of the torso, the combined force would have exerted an upward force on the torso. Even with the relative speed close to zero, the sheer mass made such an outcome inevitable. And if the ship was pushed upward, the distance to the arms would greatly increase. Because of that, the arms had been done first.
“System linked to arm parts established. All operations functioning normally,” the AI reported.
“Reboot,” Clan instructed.
“As you wish, my princess. Rebooting the entire ship in synchronous mode. Parameters reset. The main ship can now function as a single battleship,” the AI confirmed.
With a sigh, Clan finally stopped. She’d been a busy bee until now, and she leaned into her chance now that she finally had a moment to relax.
“Good work, Clan-sama,” Ruth said with a smile.