The ride back over to the dry docks was thankfully short and couldn't have taken more than a minute, and yet the time seemed to have stretched out into years.
Though I wanted to feel happy that Madeline was finally getting what she wanted after all her years alone and the constant reminder of her pain would be gone, I couldn't, instead an uneasy feeling was growing within me as I looked at Madeline who had a small smile on her face and a glint in her eyes.
As we got closer I decided to put it on the backburner, there was no point in letting my emotions ruin what was supposed to be a happy moment for her.
Her ship came into view and the jeep slowed to a halt allowing us to hop out, Madeline walked forward to get a better view and I motioned to join her.
It's look was overall the same, her hull was still covered in rust and decayed paint and her superstructure left something to be desired but her keel looked a slight bit better than it did before with actual metal being visible instead of green algae and seaweed, granted the metal was worn thin and was still sharp and flakey but still an improvement.
The ship may have looked the same but the area around it had changed drastically, there were large crates strewn about the dry dock in seemingly random places and long wooden planks stacked near the edge of the concrete to be used for building more of the towering scaffolding that occupied the side of the ship with different Bosun Chairs and Cage Systems hanging from it.
There was also quite the commotion happening on deck, people were angerly shouting with one another as they tried to motion a crane over the cargo hold, a worker hanging from the cable getting directions from the people below and repeating them to the man working the machine.
We watched as they worked it over to the position and lowered it into the ship, most likely to other people already stationed below waiting to secure the ropes to the cargo, and from there a near silence followed.
For a moment there I was worried that something had happened or someone had forgotten to leave their mask on until a man started walking towards us with a radio in his hand.
He addressed us, "Good afternoon Miss Enterprise, and from what I've heard you must be Miss Madeline, correct?"
I watched as she took a step forward and tried her best to wipe the smile off her face, "You are indeed."
"Well, the commander told us of your situation and how you got and everything so I was just wondering if you would like to give us the go ahead."
The smile then returned to her face and cleared her throat before answering, "You may proceed with the removal."
The worker returned the smile, "Very well, Ma'am," he then turned on his radio and ordered the crane operator, "We have the A-Okay, go ahead."
"You got it!" A crackling voice responded and the sound of a mechanical winch being activated filled the air.
And for a short bit that seemed to be the only noise that could be heard, that was until Madeline's crutches fell to the ground and she fell forward onto her hands in pain.
I rushed over to her and tried to help her to her feet but stopped when I noticed her face, her eyes where bloodshot and dilated, her noise was bleeding heavily and she was coughing violently, after which blood also appeared dribbling from the sides of her mouth.
Not wasting any time, I ordered the man to tell the crane operator to stop everything and leave the cargo in place before picking up Madeline and rushing back over to the jeep with her in my arms.
The man spoke into the radio just as I had yelled at the driver to return us to the hospital immediately, he complied and soon we were off speeding down the pavement towards the main gate while I held Madeline close to me, she was shuddering and had fallen unconscious.
Though it was probably better that way, she would either have either been in agony from the pain or the thought I had when she collapsed.
'She's not going to like it when I tell her.'
'This seems a bit familiar.' I thought as I came to and felt the familiar hospital pillow pressing into my head.
I opened my eyes but quickly shut them again after a blinding light spurred on the horrible headache I just now noticed.
So I slowly opened my eyes until they had adjusted to the light and looked around the room to spot anything out of the ordinary until I came upon Enterprise, she was having a rather intense conversation with the person on the other side of the receiver she was holding and had a conflicted look on her face, then she noticed me looking over at her and said goodbye before hanging up and walking back over to me.
"Glad to see you awake." She said as I tried to push myself higher up in the bed.
"What happened?" I asked her.
"What do you last remember."
"We were at the dry dock... a man walked over and asked me to give the order and then I... I..." I tried to think of what had happened after that but all that was coming to my mind was the extreme headache I was feeling, "I... don't remember."
She nodded, "You collapsed back there and passed out so I wouldn't expect you to remember much anyways."
"Okay, then what happened after I collapsed?"
"After, I picked you up and we rushed you back to the hospital in the jeep, where the doctors then did their best to patch you up, though it really wasn't much since most of the blood was coming from inside your body so it's actually been more like a waiting game."
"Do they know why it happened?"
Instead of answering right away, Enterprise turned her head away a bit and seemed to be thinking about something, obviously nothing good with the way she looked.
"Well?" I asked her, she then let off a sigh and looked back over at me.
"Do you remember what happened right before you collapsed."
"I... I think I do, the man called in the crane operator and they started the removal process and then I... No."
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
"So, then it's not..."
"No, it's been placed back on your ship, the engineers determined that it can't be taken two feet off the ground without you falling apart at the seems and that there's... no way to remove it without causing your death."
"Th-Then I'm..."
"Stuck with the pain, yes. I'm sorry." She apologized as she out-stretched her arm to try to comfort me which I slapped away in a small fit of anger.
She looked surprised at my action and for a moment I thought that she would be angry at my rudeness, but thankfully she simply retracted her gesture and sat on the same bed frame she resided this morning.
Feeling guilty, I said: "Sorry, I just... I just think I need sometime alone with my thoughts for a moment, if that's alright."
She softly and somberly smiled before standing up and leaving the room, the sound of the door slamming shut echoing in the empty space along with the silent tears that fell from my face and stained the pillow beneath me as I tried to relieve the horrible pressure in my head and the aching in my heart.
The dial tone continued after the call had been ended and it took me a moment before I could place it back on the receiver stand.
It was a rather peculiar feeling, loss and sympathy, one a man should both rarely and often experience in their lives and it was safe to say that I have had my fair share.
It was one of those things that came with being a commander, one in this role would often experience these feelings when having to report to a wife or family that one of their own tragically but heroically died in battle, or to a ship girl that despite all their victories was being placed in retirement simply because of their age or injuries.
Because of this, it was easy to get used to all the suffering and it became rare when one truly affected you, though none would ever have the same effect as the first letter or order to condemn someone to years of sorrow.
Madeline was different, she was not one of those people waiting for their husband to come or a ship girl waiting in the hospital to hear of her condition, this was a person who had only known pain and torture for the majority of her life and had finally arrived at a place where we might be able to relieve the source of her pain only to find that we can't.
It was a weird kind of disappointing I had never felt before, we had always been able to help those who needed it, when the USS Arizona was attacked and sunk by the Sakura Empire, we didn't just wait around to let her rust away into nothing leaving her to die, no! We immediately salvaged her and the others sunk in that horrific event, we saved the few survivors still trapped aboard her and now her ship is being rebuilt while she builds up her strength at the Naval training station in Oregon.
But for this woman there was near nothing that we could do apart from repair her the best we could and give her company but even that didn't feel like it was enough.
It wasn't nice feeling so helpless.
So I instead threw myself into other things, I called the painting people and asked them if they've made any progress yet and they answered that one of their team had been really enthusiastic about the project and that he would have some examples ready by morning, then I called the supervisors involved with the project and informed them about the current circumstances involving the action they saw that afternoon.
And from there, I dived into some research.
If there was one thing that I've learned from ship girls like her, it's that they can't exist without a basis to operate on, meaning that the ship had to have existed beforehand in order for them to be summoned into this word and though their forms were materialized from nothing, the basic structure still remained untouched, it's the reason why there's not two Belfast's sailing for both the Royal Navy and Eagle Union.
Which meant that before Madeline came into this word, there had already been a pre-existing Ourang Medan that went missing somewhere in the ocean for whatever reason and if the ship in question carried the same kind of power as Madeline does now, what happened to it.
One things for sure, I wouldn't get much sleep that night.
It was about eight in the evening and the docks were silent, the work stopped when the light went away so everyone had already gone home for the day but an hour prior, the cranes still in their last positions and random equipment strewn about the area.
The ship was being painted in a nice blue light that blended shadows with the grey of the paint and the cargo holds were left open for the workers to get right back to it in the morning and each one seemed completely empty excepting the decaying cargo that remained.
Emphasis on seemed.
Cargo Hold 2 while completely silent was not fully unoccupied, as a figure with a cloak stepped out from the darkness, breathing heavily into a mask and carrying a small leather bag by their side, and walked towards the three wooden crates stacked in the center of the room.
They stopped as they neared the cargo and kneeled down on the floor, setting the case out in front of them and opening it to reveal vials and medical equipment, using their gloves they delicately picked up a pair of tweezers and two empty small vials.
They then stood up and grabbed ahold of the lid of the wooden crate and lifted it open to reveal the large grey and aged cloth sacks faintly labeled 'Manchurian Gold.'
They rested the lid against the wood and took off the cork caps on each of the vials before taking the tweezers and removing a few grams of the chemicals and placing them into each of the vials before placing the corks on them once more and closing the crate lid.
Reaching back down to their case, they placed the tweezer and one of the vials back in its designated area and then took up a syringe filled with water to replace the absence in their hand, they then carefully pushed the syringe into the cork until the needle reached past it and plunged the water down into vial.
The water quickly mixed with the solid chemicals and broke them down and the person continued mixing them until the two were fully integrated with each other, observing how despite the water looking the same as it did before it started giving off a green gas that quickly filled the excess space.
"Interesting," the person spoke, their words echoing in a feminine manner around the chamber and reaching their ears before speaking again, "perhaps this will be the very solution we were looking for."
Then the woman placed the vial next to the other along with the now empty syringe before closing up her case and standing up, she turned away from the crates and started walking back into the shadows she walked out from and a sudden brilliant flash of light filled the room.
Before fading away and revealing an empty space where the woman just stood.