A mass driver was a massive installation that allowed objects on the ground to be launched into space at relatively low cost.
Four such mass drivers existed in this world.
One of them, the Kaguya Spaceport mass driver, was located on Orb's mainland and belonged to the nation itself.
Now fully prepared, the Archangel had taken its place on the mass driver's launch track. The installation would accelerate the ship and propel it into the sky.
It operated much like the electromagnetic catapults aboard aircraft carriers, which accelerated fighters during takeoff and reduced the amount of fuel they needed to expend.
"Ten... nine... eight..."
The countdown began.
"Zero!"
The instant the count reached zero, an immense force propelled the three-hundred-meter-long warship forward. It rapidly accelerated along the curved launch track.
The moment it cleared the track's highest point, the Archangel's bow pointed upward at an angle approaching ninety degrees and tore through the atmosphere.
The auxiliary boosters attached to both sides of the Archangel ignited just as the mass driver's acceleration reached its limit. They smoothly took over, continuing to accelerate the ship as they drove it higher into the sky.
"Deploy the Wave-Force Armor!"
A clear voice rang across the bridge.
A barrier formed over the Archangel's outer armor, appearing like countless polygonal energy crystals fitted tightly together. Thanks to this protection, the Archangel no longer needed to deploy its heat-dispersing gel.
"What is that?"
"It's converting the heat generated by friction into additional thrust!"
"What kind of technology can do that?"
According to the data displayed by the ship, the energy barrier did more than simply insulate the hull. It absorbed the heat generated by atmospheric friction, transferred it toward the Archangel's stern, and expelled it to produce additional thrust.
The technology was almost unbelievable.
It had come from that extraordinary warship.
Takao had attached part of her armor to the Archangel. Everyone had assumed that helping insulate the ship against atmospheric heat would be the limit of what it could accomplish. None of them had expected it to provide additional thrust as well.
This allowed the Archangel to reduce its own energy consumption even further.
"Hmph."
Takao gave a slightly smug, tsundere-like snort at the humans' amazement.
She had already thoroughly scanned the space warship's propulsion system and engines.
If she possessed enough nanomaterial, she could build a Fleet of Fog vessel capable of flying through space.
In the blink of an eye, atmospheric resistance began to weaken and natural weightlessness set in.
The sensation fascinated Takao.
The Fleet of Fog could reproduce a state of weightlessness, but that was always something they deliberately controlled. Naturally occurring, uncontrolled weightlessness felt entirely different.
She pushed off with one foot and immediately shot toward the ceiling. Before she could slam into it, a hand reached out and caught her.
Because they were weightless, he did not even need to pull very hard. She simply drifted straight into his arms, ending up in something that looked suspiciously like a princess carry.
Takao immediately felt her Mental Model core heating up again.
The human holding her was the very person she wanted as her captain.
"I..."
"How are the calculations coming along?"
She had just been about to say something in her usual contrary fashion. According to this man, that tendency to say the opposite of what she felt was called being a tsundere.
Before she could finish, however, he interrupted her.
Takao puffed out her cheeks in displeasure.
"Of course there's no problem. As long as I have enough material, converting myself into a space-capable warship would be easy."
"Give me the data."
This man really was no fun. He had no interest in chatting with her at all.
Takao pouted.
Couldn't he at least hold her a little longer?
"Deploy your Klein Field and stabilize yourself."
He had invaded her mind and peeked at her thoughts again!
As for nearly crashing into the ceiling, Takao genuinely had not done it on purpose. She had simply forgotten to deploy her Klein Field to stabilize herself.
"Hmm?"
Kain studied the structural data on the holographic display Takao had opened and soon discovered a problem.
"Why didn't you include the required processing load?"
The Mental Model's expression became slightly unnatural. Looking somewhat guilty, she reluctantly displayed the information he had requested.
One glance was enough for Kain to understand that Takao had been exaggerating.
With enough nanomaterial, she really could construct a warship capable of reaching space. However, her proposed solution amounted to little more than brute-forcing the problem with overwhelming thrust.
She had not properly accounted for atmospheric drag when designing the vessel's shape.
Many of its structural components also appeared to have been reinforced simply for the sake of adding even more reinforcement.
In other words, Takao had been unable to calculate exactly how much stress the ship's structure would endure under the engines' thrust. Her solution was to reinforce everything again and again until it was strong enough.
Takao possessed the Mental Model core of a heavy cruiser. Her processing power was insufficient to fully calculate a space warship with the Archangel's mass.
She could not allocate enough processing power to simultaneously design and coordinate every system required for a proper spacefaring vessel. Her only alternative was to construct an excessively reinforced ship and force it into space through sheer engine power.
Her design did not even properly account for the life-support systems required by a human crew.
"This is only what I calculated in the short time I've had. Give me more time, and I can build a perfect warship."
"So your CPU usage is too high, rather than your memory usage?"
"Huh? What does that mean?"
Kain explained the difference between CPU usage and memory usage, allowing him to develop a better understanding of the nature of her Mental Model core.
Based on the information Takao provided, he ultimately reached a conclusion.
Takao could indeed construct a proper space warship. However, her CPU was not powerful enough to run enough processes simultaneously, so she would have to compensate with time and complete each process separately.
Even if he upgraded her memory and motherboard, the CPU itself would remain at the same level. Improving the rest of the hardware could only accomplish so much when the CPU could not fully utilize it.
This was also why the Fleet of Fog's ordinary submarines, destroyers, and light cruisers did not possess Super-Graviton Cannons. Their CPUs lacked the processing power needed to perform the immense calculations required to operate one.
As for nanomaterial technology, Takao possessed no information about how the nanomaterial itself was manufactured.
Furthermore, although the Wave-Force Armor constructed from nanomaterial could be integrated into the Archangel, it could not be connected to the ship's control systems. Humans could not operate it manually. Only commands issued by a Mental Model core could control it.
That meant Kain's hope of adapting Klein Field technology to power armor he could operate freely would have to remain unrealized for the time being.
Corrosive Torpedoes, on the other hand, could be operated by humans.
In practice, however, human operation was limited to arming the warhead, calibrating its target, and launching it. After that, the operator could no longer issue any commands to the torpedo.
Once launched, the warhead autonomously attacked its designated target and refused all human instructions.
No, saying it refused them was not entirely accurate. It was more like two people speaking completely different languages.
A Corrosive Torpedo could not understand the wireless signals transmitted by human equipment. Since those signals were not among the commands it recognized, it naturally did not respond.
There was still one way to issue new orders to a Corrosive Torpedo, allowing it to change targets or self-destruct.
The equipment transmitting those commands had to be manufactured by the Fleet of Fog. The torpedo would then recognize the transmission as an order from the Fleet of Fog itself.
There was one other interesting detail.
The destructive effects of a Corrosive Torpedo resembled those of a G-Bomb. A Corrosive Torpedo could even be described as an extremely weakened version of a G-Bomb, suggesting that the two technologies might be related.
If that was true, then the Fleet of Fog's nanomaterial might also be connected to G-Elements.
Wave-Force Armor offered no such workaround. It accepted commands exclusively from a Mental Model core.
That aside, Kain wondered if he could take something like a little snow cat back with him.
It did not possess genuine self-awareness, so perhaps the Transdimensional Channel would not classify it as a living being.
Kain planned to return to the Warhammer universe and have Takao make several for him to take back.
No, that would not work.
Takao could not give them to him because anything she created would be transported back to her world once the dimensional passage closed.
In that case, he would have to ask Kongō for them.
(End of Chapter)
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