The adventures of the young engineer and Prinz Eugen Volume 2.

No. 6 Chapter 7

The young engineer was at his limit. For a week he had been denied any contact with the others. Neither Richelieu nor any of the other Iris Libre ships had talked to him outside of telling him that he was not permitted to be at their meetings or part of the negotiations. Meanwhile he was informed by the protocols and some of the ships from the other delegation, that the Iris ships still used him as an argumentative point for not trusting the Ironblood. Now as a form of untrustworthy spy and manipulator, rather than a dissatisfied forced conscript. Either way the way his persona was used and abused to push a narrative angered the young engineer. Meanwhile he was unable to talk to Prinz Eugen. The cruiser stuck to avoiding him to ensure that no one suspected the two of working together. He knew that it was better that way, otherwise the Iris Libre would be able to use their contact and connections to each other as further proof of seeming intrigues spun by Ironblood.
Either way, he was done with this situation. He had hoped that eventually the Iris ships would calm down but seeing that nothing could be expected from them, the young engineer decided to call it quits and move on. He could do better things with his time than wasting it on them to figure themselves out. Neither did he like to be played as a pawn. He planned to address all of the ships at the dinner table and announce what he thought about the way the Iris Libre had treated him and how they were abusing the trust he had put into them before resigning from the delegation and conference.

At the beginning of that day's evening dinner the young engineer waited to set his plans in motion until most of the Shipgirls had finished their meal or were enjoying their dessert. As it was practiced by now, no one had spoken a word since the beginning prayer made by one of the Iris Ships. The young engineer now took the opportunity and moved his chair backwards to stand up. "Umm... I am sorry to interrupt. I would like to address you all with a few words." He began in the language of the Royal Islands. Everyone immediately started to stare at the young engineer, which made the latter even more uncomfortable in his skin. "Some of you may know, some may not. But I had an issue with how my cooperation with the Iris Libre delegation was developing. Since I was no longer permitted to speak to the delegation since the opening of the first negotiations here, I decided to announce my resignation from this negotiation and meeting." He explained. Some facial expressions changed. That of the Iris Libre ships mostly to one of annoyance, caused by the young engineers breaking of the table etiquette, to one of slight embarrassment on some faces and anger on others. The faces of the other parties remained attentive and had slight expressions of surprise. Only Prinz Eugen seems to not be bothered at all. She kept playing around with her glass of Whiskey and seemed to not pay attention at all to what was going on. "As to the reason why I will take my leave. There are multiple reasons, but the two that matter the most to me and ensured that I do not see myself fit to assist in these negotiations are that my presence and any possible insights or opinions that I could have provided were disregarded right from the beginning of these negotiations. The other reason is the misrepresentation of supposed arguments and objectives I was supposed to have. Due to mainly these reasons I do not think that I will be of any assistance to anyone at this moment and I will therefore take my leave. I do wish both sides involved in this matter that they will find an arrangement with which both sides can agree on. ...'' The young engineer explained. But before he could say anything else, Richelieu interrupted him. "Thank you for your parting words. I think this is enough extraordinarily breaking of conventions for today. Please sit down until the dinner is finished and afterwards the Iris Libre will oblige your wishes and escort you out." She decided and forced the young engineer to submit to her demand as host, to remain silent before he could say anything else. Swallowing the rest of the phrase he wanted to say, he sat back down, unsure what the last words from the Iris Libre Flagship meant exactly. Looking around he saw that the Vichiya ships gave each other telling looks, while similar things happened between the Iris ships. Only Hood had kept her fascate of an attentive listener while sipping her cup of tea. Bringing his attention back to Prinz Eugen, he saw that the cruiser had kept her expression of slight boredom up. He knew that expression too well by now. It was her poker face and by the way her eyes had made contact with his, he knew that she was going through a lot of the possibilities and changes of plans that would now occur. How she felt about what he did, he could not tell. The lack of expression around her eyes or in her stare told him nothing. What threw him completely off was instead a visible difference he noticed on her hands. The cruiser had taken off her tight fitting gloves to eat dinner and her right hand, whose index finger followed the rim of her Whiskey glass, he could see a distinct shape he was awfully familiar with around her ring finger. She wore a ring around her right ring finger. One with a diameter and shape, he knew by heart. Feeling even more sick and even less comfortable and completely brought out of balance, the young engineer was unable to make a decision. Now he realized what Hood meant with her last words to him. She must have seen the ring on Prinz Eugen finger as well and recognised it as the same ring the young engineer used to wear. Unable to deal with it all, the young engineer suddenly stood up and left before the others had finished their meal.