Battleship

"How do you understand 'penetrated'?" - Lucy's voice carried notes of dissatisfaction. Nine levels of battleship defense, or simply "nine levels."

The zero level isn't part of the internal nine levels; zero is the hangar level with not very "important" equipment and numerous weapons.

The exception is the "Gelmer" - the battleship's main weapon located outside, with a defense level of five. But there's something of a higher level - the eighth: the storage, and on the seventh - the workshop. Both sections of the battleship house a multitude of items, from incredibly useful and dangerous to incredibly useless. Two sections are deep within the battleship, accessible only to the chosen ones - senior officers and a few exceptions. The ninth level - the most important - only Arlok has access to it, and there's little information about what is kept there...

"The eighth level... What were these creatures looking for on the battleship, and who are they?" - Lucy thought to herself, quickly returning to the battleship.

What protected each of these levels? The Battleship's General Protection System (GPSB), combined with Amiona - a system developed by the Council to store Alliance secrets. Amiona was a marvel for humans, a machine that absorbed the complexity of human beings and their great dedication. But even so, there were other security systems above Amiona: Keor - responsible for full control over Amiona, and Sphere - a program that stood above Keor, while Amiona, closing this circle, supervised Sphere. All of this was integrated into the general environment in GPSB, where GPSB played the leading role. How exactly did these systems and programs help the battleship in defense? Simply put: they were artificial intelligences capable of managing the battleship's internals, weapons, shields, and much more, without taking away the humans' ultimate decision-making power, but they could challenge it in favor of humans. They also controlled machines similar to Zigfaers, but more soulless and deadly. There were few of them on the battleship now, but they would undoubtedly be able to stop the girls, thought Lucy.

"The second gates were open, two Mechanisms were broken, and the third was excessively damaged," - someone reported the situation to Lucy; images of rooms made by Sphere appeared before her.

"Nebel?" - Lucy asked, stopping; she had long since removed her helmet after entering the battleship's interior.

"Yes?" - answered the slender doctor, who faithfully and quietly followed the irate Lucy.

"What do you think about this?" - she turned to him; her eyebrows lifted slightly.

Nebel paused. The suit he wore in space had changed; nanomachines had rearranged his clothes, making them resemble his former doctor's uniform. His emerald-like green eyes widened and looked at Lucy; she was angry about many things...

"If I knew, but I can guess - they are our enemies," - Lucy didn't let him finish the sentence, making Nebel fall silent after his first word.

"Don't fool around and play with me; I'm not in the mood," - Lucy tried to contain her anger towards her comrade; he was an important figure on the battleship, especially now, when their ranks had suffered incredible losses.

"I'm stating the obvious because I don't know myself. Give us time, and we'll do everything, but we need time, Lucy," - he took a step toward her.

"We've been traversing space for a long time, and here we encounter a coincidence: two signals, one from the Eden Center, the other from our master with you. It's easy to assume it could have been a trap set by those who isolated us from the Alliance and are gradually exterminating us," - he began to walk, side by side with Lucy, who listened to his brief speech.

Lucy's nod indicated that she wanted Nebel to continue.

"And they were looking for something, which means they knew more about the battleship than we know about them," - he looked at his hand. - "I could do little even before the expedition, not your whip, I wouldn't have been able to defeat that girl. And now, looking back at that fight. The violinist, the girl in the black dress, managed to hold back the entire battleship, even in its semi-alive state, but even that is a feat, and also... She managed to contend with you..." - he tilted his head and swallowed.

"Lucy had nothing left but to agree. Those who had just attacked the battleship were searching for something; they managed to destroy Zigfaer and also escape, and even worse – penetrate all the way to the eighth level, if not deeper...

"Let each defense system check the others, and let some captains verify the entire security system," - these words were spoken by Lucy as she entered the captain's booth.

As the girl sat on her "throne," multiple screens appeared before her. She attempted to analyze Zigfaer's battle and the data it transmitted before its "death." The melodies of the koto and shamisen highlighted by Zigfaer in that battle were not audible in the video.

"Forty-Eighth Squad of the 'Stellar Path,' did you hear sounds of an organ and shamisen, instruments producing sounds similar to ancient music from Earth, the mother planet?" - she conversed with people kilometers away, using the Eden Crystal on her hand.

"I'm not sure, but there was some strange melody..." - their responses were similar. Zigfaer recognized the melody using the battleship's database about Earth, the mother planet. Many, like Lucy, had no idea about those instruments, except for the violin, considered a symbol of the Alliance's Third Sector.

A fleeting thought in Lucy's mind, desiring to know more about the organ and shamisen, prompted information screens to appear before her, along with the calm voice of Kay, explaining these ancient instruments.

"Japan..." - the girl muttered to herself. This country was unknown to Lucy, such an ancient name of a state that no Earth history textbook used. Like Europe, she encountered this word in a report about the violin and organ. These three things connected the girl strangely with Earth, but the red-eyed girl couldn't find answers despite examining it.

Their combat skills and abilities were entered into the shared database; their faces, like masks, were recorded in the common database, labeled as "Criminals."

Now, she began reviewing her own battle and the battleship's data, the changing lines indicating incredible stress on the battleship's outer Eden Shield, as well as some internal parts. Lucy didn't want to draw such conclusions, but the violinist was clearly strong, incredibly strong. The Eden Shield could withstand loads up to 5700 pE; currently, the load of unknown force was equivalent to 2000 pE, the Zero level. This was an incredible reading for one reason: such a load was evenly distributed across the battleship's Eden Shield. Readings only dropped below that level when Lucy herself began using her "Eden tools," but this only applied to a small part of the battleship, not the entire structure.

"Who are they..." - Lucy glared angrily into space visible through the screens. Her conclusions angered her. Cameras from the eighth level were impossible to check at present; systems were cross-verifying, just like the knights of the order checked the system. This order was issued to avoid the danger of damaging security files. These data had to be precise and true, without a speck of falsehood.

Sighing, the screens before the girl changed again. Now, they showed the moment when this group of "people" and monsters first appeared on the cameras.

"From stone to this..." - she touched her chin. - "Destroy all unknown objects, be they drifting asteroids or anything else!" - the command was given, even though such an order was contained in the already activated battleship Protocol.

"Do we have remnants of these monsters?" - Lucy turned to Nebel, who stood faithfully and waited, released by the jealous and presently angry woman.

"Their tissues decayed quickly, but..." - he pulled out a strange vial, incredibly sealed by two Oin plates and made mostly of Kionian glass. - "While you were raging in the absence of your young man, I managed to gather a bit and isolate them from space..." - Nebel didn't finish; his eyes inadvertently caught Lucy's gaze, and he added, hiding the vial: - "Apparently, an unsuccessful joke," - he smiled.

"Forward, to the signal!" - Lucy shouted, snorting at Nebel beforehand.

"Launch the First and Second engines, full speed ahead!"