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

No. 9 Chapter 4

"Machiavellian ideals might as well justify your argument for seeking strength and power over all to secure your own status and survival but how is this supposed to be a basis for a save and trustworthy cooperation and alliance with others?" The engineer answered with a counter argument while inserting one of the pistons into an engine cylinder. "Can you hand me the size 13 wrench please?" He asked as well and Prinz Adalbert obliged him. "Here, hold the crank and connecting rod in place so that I can attach the two and fix the crank pin in place." He instructed the cruiser. "What other opportunity does a small power have other than seeking more power to ensure its survival through force of power? If it does not gain enough strength to sustain and secure itself it will remain a pawn between the great powers and will either be divided, absorbed or destroyed by them." Came the counter argument. "But through an alliance of smaller powers or with a larger power that could be prevented." The engineer countered while pushing the crank pin into the connecting rod and crankweb. "Relying on the weak is to rely on a broken branch as a crutch. Relying on the power of the stronger makes you their pawn." Came the answer to the engineer's point. "So you believe a loose alliance on one's own benefit is the only solution to gain advantages and power from stronger powers? How long will this sort of strategy last until everyone is antagonized and no one trusts you any more?" The engineer tried to argue against the points. "Hopefully long enough to gain enough power that no other great power alone can defeat one's own. That way one establishes their own power, freedom and security from the interference from others." Came to the counter. The engineer closed the cover of the engine and pushed his dolly board he was laying on out from under the rigging he had been working on together with Prinz Adalbert. He almost gouged his left eye out from a dangling heel of an ornamented black boot that dangled off the rigging. Looking up the engineer looked into the imperial topaz colored eyes of Ulrich von Hutten. The battleship brushed a strand of her matte black hair out of her face and awaited an answer or counter argument to her point. "Still even as a big power the security of the power and status would not be ensured now that everyone is antagonized. Giving them all a cause to unite against you" He answered. "Yes, but that is the point, one has to use their change of alliances and sides as a vehicle to sow animosity between the other bigger powers while avoiding repercussions themselves and with the opportunity to have another growing power or string power on their side, it will be attractive for both sides to try to maintain relations. They may not be ones built on trust and loyalty but a relation built on convenience and usefulness is one both sides can use to their full advantage and see out of the point of pragmatism and usefulness." Ulrich countered. "But without allies one can't sustain one's own position against a group of enemies." The engineer counters. "True, but that is the reason why you avoid the possibility of your enemies uniting by setting them up against each other with alliances of convenience with you against others. That way one should always be able to sustain your own power and grow it at the cost of the power of others. The shark plays with soft jellyfish no longer." Ulrich von Hutten stated.

Before the engineer could answer her they both were interrupted by Prinz Adalbert. Holding the design schematic of the diesel engine in her hand after she had apparead from beneath the rigging as well. "It looks like everything is in order, let's see if the engine finally works as she should and turns fuel into more power for the Wisdomcube energy as it is supposed to." She concluded their current workeffort. "Sounds good, we can attach the armor plates later, there is no need to do so unless we know we don't have to work on the engine again." The engineer agreed and pulled himself out from underneath the rigging. Prinz Adalbert followed suit and immediately went over to the center of her rigging to attach her rigging belt around her hips. The engineer was fascinated by the huge difference between Prinz Heinrichs and Prinz Adalberts rigging in comparison to that of the older Ironblood ships. They no longer had fixed mounting points that attached to them like a sort of backpack or hip ring to attach the rigging to the being in human form but they both only had a sort of belt that allowed them to directly control the separate elements of their rigging. While the older ships needed the physical contact and connection to their riggings these two apparently only needed their belts as a sort of remote control through which they could guide the shark like metal beasts of their riggings. The fact that this was even possible had blown away all previous ideas the engineer had about the possibilities of rigging construction functionality. He knew at that moment that it would take all the engineers decades to properly learn and understand all the quirks and possibilities of how a rigging could be created and how they could function. All they knew by now was that just like aircraft carriers, apparently all ships could potentially control their riggings or aircraft through their will and not just physical connection and control.

"Are you ready?" Adalbert asked and ripped the engineer out of his thoughts. "Yes, let's go ahead." He confirmed and turned around to open the locks on the rigging holder which held Adalbert's second rigging half in place while they had worked on it. Opening the locks the beast became lively and began to wiggle and shake. Urlich von Hutten, which had remained in place on top of the riggings back now elegantly slid down the shaking metal construction and landed perfectly in one elegant motion on her feet. "Looks like your excitement also translates into your rigging." Hutten commented on the behavior of the great metal shark. The engineer meanwhile walked over to the control surface of one of the big ceiling mounted cranes to pick up Prinz Adalberts' rigging, while Prinz Adalbert did the same with her other half and the second crane. Both picked up one of the steel monsters and taxied them over to the drydock to release the rigging into the water. Lowering them down the two creatures roared in seeming excitement and Adalbert hurried over to the basin to put on her rigging shoes and join her rigging on the surface. She walked onto the water and immediately the two sharks flanked both sides of the young woman. "Would you mind opening the lock and hall gate so I can take them for a spin out in the harbor?" Adalbert asked. The engineer nodded and walked over to the controls to open the lock of the drydocks' basin and the large metal gate of the building surrounding it. Prinz Adalbert immediately hurried out of the building into the harbor basin when the gap between the gates was big enough for her and her riggings to pass through. The engineer opened them far enough to allow a five meter gap between them so that the cruiser could return with her rigging without struggling through the small opening.

Turning back to the giant workshop inside the engineer saw Ulrich von Hutten in what seemed to be her favorite position. Leaning against a wall with crossed arms and her head slightly bowed. Despite not standing straight she was still taller than the engineer and her heliodor yellow eyes mustered him while her presence seemed to suck the light out of the room. Raising an eyebrow, the engineer waited for the battleship to say something. "I am still waiting for your counter argument." The battleship stated. Recalling where they stopped, the engineer nodded. "I suppose you are right to consider the growth of one's own might and the reduction of the might of others the primary task to achieve hegemony and safety through domination and power and using the interests of others to one's own advantage." The engineer agreed with the last point Ulrich von Hutten had made. "But on a moral level it is absolute corruption of one's own character and ideals to abuse trust and power to dominate the weak instead of co-opting them into cooperation and therefore trust and perhaps admiration." He argued and hoped to have hit the right spot in the set of outlooks that Ulrich von Hutten seemed to share with her namesake. The battleship instead blew away a strain of hair out of her face and looked slightly annoyed. "You know, sometimes I could punch you for your arguments. Instead of finding a counter to dissolve them you find a way to dislodge their validity in one's own perspective by appealing and pointing out one's own values." The battleship explained the exact thing the engineer had hoped for. "Either way, you might be right on that point but for a state that has no morals and principles other than gaining power and ensuring the security of itself and its power these will not work." She added and defeated the argument of morality he had made, although she had admitted that his point had at least partial validity. "Either way, I need to get a drink. See you around tinkerer and don't fall down those stairs to your office. It would be a royal pain in the ass to scrape you off." She waved him godbye while causally kicking herself off the wall and making her way out of the dock as well. The engineer watched her leave before he made his way up to his office to the small cabinet he had filled with books and other things he had brought with him two years ago. Reaching for "The Almanac of History of the Ironblood's Ships", he waited for Prinz Adalbert to return from her shakedown cruise. He thought about Ulrich von Hutten again. The young woman was even after two years of "friendship" in many aspects still an enigma to him. Despite figuring out that she came after her namesake in terms of morality, ideals and interpretation of being different to others, she still was off to him. She seemed to keep to herself and the two mostly talked when she decided to have a conversation. Mostly either to talk about music or to have a challenging argument about a topic with him, almost as if he was nothing more than a tool to her to keep her mind and intellect going. At the same time she invited him to go eat with her or visit the library and archive or to go out to a bar drinking and listening to her favorite music. It was weird to him how she showed her appreciation of their friendship. It was almost as if she was trying to keep him at arm's length and at the same time tried to be close around him or rather having him close around her. Other than that it was also her presence the engineer could not fully comprehend. Not just hers but also that of her sistership. They both had an aura, he could only define as a feeling of dread, surrounding them. Sometimes the engineer thought that they both sucked out any form of pleasant atmosphere in the room they were in. He could not figure out what it was that he felt, but he knew that none of the researchers or administrative staff he knew liked to be around any of the two. They all seemed to feel more than uncomfortable in their presence. He did not hold it against them. The two H-Klasse ships were more than special in their behavior and not to mention in the effect their presence had.Putting his thoughts aside he opened his book and started to read about the exploits of the vessels of the navies of Ironblood to perhaps understand better what events could shape the personalities of some of the ships.