The adventures of Prinz Eugen and the young engineer Volume 1.

No.4 Chapter 9

The two engineers stood at the quay wall awestruck while the two new Shipgirls looked at eachother and apparently struck up a conversation. While the two talked on the water it was Fritz Mahler and the young engineer that regained their composure, "I guess it worked." Said the young engineer, still not quite sure how to react. "It did!" His friend yelled and hugged the young engineer in excitement and happiness. "Do you know what that means?" He asked his friend. "We can start to build ships again. Proper ships and then awake them. We can build up our navy to fight the Sirens." He exclaimed, completely gripped by the excitement of their achievement. The young engineer smiled. He as well had realised that. But for once he was able to contain his delight. Mainly because he was soaking wet and stood at the quay only in his undershirt and uniform trousers. He brushed his wet hair out of his face and looked around. About everyone stationed and working at the depot had gathered on the other side of the harbor basin. Only now did the young engineer realise that they were not on the side of the outfitting quay but on the other, unused side. He also saw that the two Shipgirls had realized that there were others around and had started to move towards the outfitting quay. "We should get going, otherwise we will be unable to meet the newcomers." The young engineer observed. "Ohh, Mist. You are right." Realised Fritz and the two wet engineers hurried, with the remaining Wisdomcube case between them, around the harbor basin to the others.

Arriving on the other side the two engineers stood outside the large group of personnel that now gathered around the two Shipgirls. Fritz immediately started to push his way through the crowd. The young engineer refrained from following him. He instead turned to get to the depot building in which they had changed their clothes. He was not worried about missing out on meeting the new Shipgirls. He was sure he would meet them eventually. He rather wanted not to get too cold and get sick and therefore tried to find a way to dry himself off. The barracks part of the Depot had showers and thankfully a storage cabinet full of towels. He took off his wet clothes, showered off the dirt of the harbor water and dried himself off. Returning to the changing room he put on the clothes he had taken off to wear the hotsuit. He only missed a pair of socks, underwear and trousers. He quickly decided to look up the storage cabinet in the changing room and thankfully found a couple of military issue clothes in storage. He grabbed a pair of socks, underwear and pants. Finally dressed and clean again the young engineer returned to the quay 20 odd minutes later. The crowd at the equipment quay had dispersed and the young engineer only saw the watchmen and a couple of quay workers cleaning up the fallen boarding ramps and tug ropes with whom the former hull of Seydlitz was secured to the quay. The young engineer guessed that the research team together with the Shipgirls had changed location into the old submarine bunker to help the two on land and to examine them there. He therefore turned to go to the bunker as well. Even though there was a lot of security, everyone let the young engineer through and he soon was at the docks in the bunker. There he spotted Fritz and three other researchers that were there looking around the two Shipgirls. Walking over to them he saw that his friend had a new tunic on but still wore his wet trousers and was walking in only his socks. "Don't you want to change into some dry clothes?" The young engineer asked his friend. The latter perked up. "Hey, where did you go to? I could not find you in the crowd. I thought you got lost in it." His friend returned the young engineer's greeting. "I will soon. But first I want you to meet our new friends." He continued and brought the attention of the young engineer and the Shipgirls to each other.

The young engineer smiled and stretched out his right hand to greet them. "Hello and welcome. It is nice to have you two here. It is a pleasure to meet you two." He greeted them. The white haired Shipgirls stretched out her gloved hand. "Light cruiser, Mainz of the Ironblood. Nice to meet you." She greeted him back with a polite smile as well. The hand the young engineer shook stood out to him in two ways. The Shipgirls grip was similar to that of a vice. Next to that, her anthracite colored gloves had red fingertips on the underside of her fingers. After shaking her hand, his hand was gripped by the delicate and pale hand of the red haired Shipgirl. "I am the light aircraft carrier Weser. Nice to meet you as well." She greeted the young engineer. Shaking her hand the young engineer smiled. "It is a pleasure meeting you as well." He returned the friendly words. He continued right away with the question that raced through his mind since he first saw the two Shipgirls. "May I ask how it happened that you two appeared? I mean there was only one hull of Seydlitz and yet you two, Weser and Mainz, appeared." The young engineer wondered. The two looked at each other. "Well. Concerning me, I am Seydlitz as she was designed and partially built. With my 15cm guns I would not be considered a heavy cruiser and therefore would not deserve to get the name of one. The previous class of light cruisers had the names L and N so I thought M would be the starting letter of my name. Therefore I chose the city of Mainz as my Namesake."Mainz Answered the young engineer. "The same goes for me. I was Seydlitz and was then about to be converted into my current form, the carrier project name was Weser-1. Therefore I decided to take up that name and now here I am." Weser explained her existence. "Interesting. So you two also have no real idea why you came into existence separate from each other. Even though in the core you are the same ship." Fritz Mahler concluded their explanations for being. "Not really." Weser admitted. "Well, we will figure it out eventually." The young engineer said, trying to put the others' minds at ease. "What is going to happen now?" He asked instead. "Well, the team and I will be running a lot of tests and trials with the two of you and then after that you should be ready and fit for service." Fritz explained and addressed the two Shipgirls. "Testing if our rigging works out and getting our parameters and qualities known sounds like a good idea." Weser agreed. "When do we get to fight then?" Mainz asked eagerly. "After all the tests are done and we know the two of you won't hurt yourself. Afterwards we will get you better equipment and then you two will most likely be assigned to new stations." Elaborated Fritz. "As to you, I am sorry but I was only able to get you transferred to my unit in an assisting position for the experiment. It seems the Admiralty wants to keep you at Wesermünde to take care of the cruisers there." Fritz Mahler explained to his friend with visual discomfort and regret. The latter nodded. "I guessed that much. It seems like they want to transfer Wiedling to the naval engineers academy as a practical teacher. At least he told me that much." The young engineer answered and gave another potential reason for the high command's decision.