Chapter 2: The Experiment

A large aircraft submarine floats on top of a clear blue ocean. A little girl stands on the bow of the sub. Her Siren Yellow eyes staring up to the clear blue sky, with her Ash Blonde air flowing in the wind. Her dress flaps with the wind.

"Does the color of the sky mean anything special to you?" A young yet, mature voice narrates. "It does to me. A hell of a lot. When I close my eyes, the sky in my dreams... is a deep, dark blue."

AZUR_LANE
The Predator of the Depths

"I just want to be free."

9 YEAR AGO

1932

An eagle soars through the air as a teenage looking Enterprise looks up to it, she's standing on the docks next to her ship. She's on a large island with a small mountain in the middle of it. Trees litter the island and deep within just past the tree you can make out buildings. 

Other ships sail around the island, guns pointed out to the waters away from the island. These ships are HO's or Human Operated ships. They have no Mental Cubes and are completely human operated. They sometimes help out with missions, but are mainly just guarding ships. 

"Miss Enterprise!" A male voice yells from the side.

Enterprise looks to the side and sees a tall blond man with a white lab coat on, with an Eagle Union patch sowed onto the front of it.

The scientist walks up to Enterprise and she turns to him.

"I'm Erik, one of the head scientists here. " He holds his hand out. "It's an honor to meet the sister of the legendary Yorktown." Enterprise just stares at him and he sweats a little as he lowers his hand. "Right."

"Why am I here?" Enterprise asks.

"Right, well, we're here to show off what we, the best scientists of the four main factions have been working on. Your commander and Yorktown would have come, but I heard Yorktown was sent on an emergency mission and your commander got busy with paper work, so they sent you here in their stead. The other three factions will be visiting later in the week."

"Then let's get on with it."

Erik nods and he motions to the concrete path behind him. "Just follow me, Miss Enterprise." She nods and Erik begins to walk inland with Enterprise following him.

As they walk towards the mountain, Enterprise asks some questions.

"What is it that you humans are doing here?" Enterprise asks.

"We are building a weapon that will help us with this Siren war." Erik responds. "She could very well, help us win it."

"She?"

"You will see."

"How did the four factions agree to work together?"

"It took many years, from what I heard." Erik claims. "But in the end, they all decided that this was more important than any petty disputes they had, so the four factions came together and are helping to build her."

"You keep mentioning a her. Who is she?" Enterprise asks.

"Alicorn. She will be the start of us winning this war. We all are putting our hearts and soul into this project."

They reach the building and it's built directly into the mountain. There are armed guards at the entrance with fully automatic weapons. 

"The lab is built into the mountain, it has helped keep us hidden." Erik says. "If the Sirens discovered this place, we fear what they'll do to Alicorn." Erik takes out a key card and swipes it through a slot next to the door and after a few seconds a beep is heard and the door opens. "We have the best security equipment here."

They walk into the building and pass through multiple security checkpoint before they get into the heart of the mountain, where the main lab is.

"We're here." Erik says and a door opens to reveal a large construction area with an opening that leads out to the ocean. "There she is."

Enterprise's eyes widen in awe as she stares at the base frame of a massive looking submarine. "it's big."

"495 Meters in length. (1,624 ft.) She's pretty big." Erik says. "Sadly we've only managed to get the base of her frame done and nothing else, it takes a lot of metal."

"What are you using?"

A loud horn echoes through the cave and the two look to see an HO ship tow in a downed siren ship.

"A siren ship, but-" Enterprise starts.

"I know, it's not right. But they have the metal we need."

"How did anyone agree to this!" Enterprise starts to get angry. "Using siren technology is dangerous. We don't know what could happen to this ship once you finish it."

"We know, but were all confident that we will be able to control her. Let's move on." Erik walks off and he grabs a folder.

Enterprises huffs in anger and she follows after Erik.

"If you want to see what her ship will look like when done, here you go." He hands her the folder.

Enterprise opens the folder and sees a couple of sketches.

"Alircorn-Class Submersible Aviation Cruiser? What does this mean?" Enterprise asks.

"We are gonna build a submarine that can launch aircraft and have the battle capabilities of a Cruiser." Erik says with stars in his eyes. "Her sub will be beautiful.  4 12'/50 caliber Mark 8 guns, two on each side of her. With 12 VLS, Vertical launch System, six on each side; that are placed within both auxiliary hull. They use the same missiles that Sirens use. For her air defense she'll have QF 2-pounder naval gun. If you can't tell, the royal navy are the ones supplying her fire power. The HMS Alicorn will be very powerful. And some weaponry from the sirens were adding is two 200 mm rail guns with a barrel length of 6.5 m (33 caliber) and the capacity to support 155 MM projectiles." Erik smiles "And she'll be able to launch aircraft off her runway, we're building special planes for her too.

"That's a lot of fire power." 

"And that's not all, In addition to its main guns,  Alicorn is going to be fitted with a far more powerful SRC-03a rail cannon hidden as part of the flight deck. This 128-caliber weapon boasted a barrel length of 76.5 metres (251 ft) and bore diameter of 600 millimetres (24 in). Its primary use was for long-range strategic bombardment of both land and air targets. When the gun fired at minimum-energy trajectory, its effective range exceeded 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi), though with the help of a scout plane."

"Isn't that a little overkill?" Enterprise asks. "Having a ship built with siren tech to have that kind of firepower, it's way too dangerous." 

You are reading story The Predator of the Depths at novel35.com

"Like I said, we are placing counter measures on her to assure we can safely control her." Erik states.

"Like what?" 

"I'm afraid that's classified right now."

Enterprise rolls her eyes and they come to a room. 

"Beyond this door lies are most powerful weapon, Alicorn." Erik says and he opens the door to reveal a large room with two glass tanks filled with green liquid in the middle, two figures are seen within the tanks.

Scientists are moving all about the room and large servers are all around the room. Erik leads Enterprise down to the tanks and they stop in front of them. In the first is a small girl, with Ash blond hair and a simple white dress on. Her eyes are closed and there are wires hooked up around her body and a breathing apparatus around her mouth and nose.

In the second tank is a "Siren!" Enterprise yells in shock.

The siren's eyes are closed and all sorts of wires are hooked up to her, no emotion on her face.

"B-But how?" Enterprise asks.

"It was a classified operation, but we lost a lot of good men to sedate and retrieve her. We learned her name was Purifier." Erik explains.

"But why is she here!" 

Erik walks up to Purifier's tank and stares at her. "We needed combat data and information. She was our best chance. She's brain dead anyway, so she won't be going anywhere soon." Then Erik walks over to Alicorn's tank and puts a hand on it. "This is all for her. She's related to you, you know." He looks back to Enterprise.

"How?" Enterprise asks in confusion. 

"Four years ago, a year after we started this project. We needed a body for Alicorn, just not anybody, a ship body. So your sister was the first to volunteer and we-"

"Got her pregnant." Enterprise finishers. 

"Yes."

"That's why she was gone for nearly ten months." Enterprise says to herself, then she looks to Erik. "Who's the father, then?" Erik just blushes and Enterprise takes a step forward in anger.

Erik holds his hands up in fear. "Wait, wait, wait. We used artificial insemination. They just used my sperm, I didn't touch her, okay."

Enterprise glares at Erik for a few seconds before relaxing.

A scientist with the Sakura Empire emblem sowed onto her lab coat walks over to Erik. "Sir, it's ready."

Erik smiles and nods, the female scientist walks off. "Enterprise today's your lucky day! You get to see your niece breath new life."

"What do you mean?"

Erik nervously laughs and rubs the back of his head. "Before Alicorn was born we did some 'things' to her and practically made her soulless, she has no Mental Cube in her. You could say she's not even really alive right now, no brain activity, no thought. She's only alive thanks to the wires we hooked up to her."

"This is all wrong, none of this is right." 

"...We know, we're just so desperate to stop this war."

The female scientist from before brings over a cart to Alicorn's tank and tacks off a cloth that was on top of it to reveal a Mental Cube. Instead of being blue, it's a mixture of blue and black.

"That feels sinister." Enterprise mumbles.

"Everything ready for Mental Cube transfer?' Erik asks everyone.

"Yes, Sir!" All the scientists say.

"Begin the Mental Cube transfer."

A robotic like arm, that's on the side of the tank, crabs the cube. The lid on the tank opens and the arm reaches in and moves the cube to the front of Alicorn's chest.

"Insert the cube." Erik orders.

A scientist taps a few keys on a computer and the robot arm pushes the cube into Alicorn's chest and she glows brightly for a few seconds. Everyone shields their eyes before the light dies down.

"It's complete." A scientist yells.

"Everything's stable, readings are normal." Another scientist yells.

Erik walks to the tank in astonishment and he puts a hand on the tank and Alicorn opens her eyes, to reveal a siren yellow. She brings a hand up to Erik's hand. "Welcome to the work, Alicorn."

"Those eyes, just like a siren!" Enterprise mutters. "You mean, I'm related to that... thing!" Enterprise yells.

Erik looks back to her. "Please, don't call her a thing. Her name is Alicorn."

"She's a monster, she's a siren!"

"She's as much of a ship girl as you are." Erik looks back to Alicorn. "She's the first step into winning this war. You'll bring greatness to this world."

Alicorn's yellow eyes look around with a child-like demeanor, and she spots Enterprise. Siren yellow meet Violet. Enterprise glares at Alicorn and she just tilts her head.

"Let's run some tests to see if her body is able to leave the tank." Erik orders a scientist.

"Yes, sir!" The scientist says.

But one thing no one notices is that Purifier, has a smirk on her face.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

01-23-2023

2005 words

You can find story with these keywords: The Predator of the Depths, Read The Predator of the Depths, The Predator of the Depths novel, The Predator of the Depths book, The Predator of the Depths story, The Predator of the Depths full, The Predator of the Depths Latest Chapter