Chapter 559: To the Moon
Since Hades had been built from Pluton's blueprints, everything Pluton possessed, Hades possessed as well.
Beyond carrying armament and defensive systems equivalent to Pluton's, Hades had naturally been fitted with the same artificial intelligence framework. Operating a vessel of this scale with a human crew alone was not a realistic proposition. Like Pluton, Hades was capable of fighting autonomously.
There was, of course, a difference. Pluton was a fusion of artificial intelligence and a ship's spirit born from the deep bond between the vessel and Joy Boy. The wisdom it had accumulated over eight hundred years was in a different category entirely from the intelligence of Hades, which had only just come into being. There was no comparison to be made.
Even so, it was enough. Intelligence did not need to be at Pluton's level to be useful in a war. Pluton itself had been no different when it was first built.
Whether Hades would eventually give rise to a ship's spirit of its own was another question.
Now that the name had been given, the time had come to test it.
Something built with this much effort over this much time deserved a proper examination. If there was a flaw hidden somewhere in a corner, it was far better to find it now than to discover it at a catastrophic moment in the middle of the final war.
Brett first used his clouds to lift Hades to the ocean surface.
Hades was almost fully sealed, like Pluton, and could withstand the deep sea without issue. But launching straight up from the seafloor would have destroyed the bubble enclosing the base, so the surface it was.
Everyone boarded the vessel. Or perhaps entered the aircraft. Despite the massive change in its external appearance, the internal structure was not as different from Pluton as might be expected. When Brett and the others reached the control room, it looked almost identical to Pluton's.
A single column stood in the center of a room. That was the same.
The one difference was that this room had seats, and the seats came equipped with safety belts, which was a thoughtful touch.
Light gathered in the room, condensing slowly into a blurred humanoid shape.
Hades's artificial intelligence. It had apparently not yet decided what it wanted to look like.
"Everyone, please be seated."
At Hades's voice, the group found seats and fastened their belts.
Then the hull began to vibrate.
The power systems built from eight-hundred-year-old Bircan technology came online. From the thrusters at Hades's stern, jets of fire began to pour.
Then it moved.
Slowly at first, gliding across the ocean surface. But within a few breaths the speed began to climb steeply.
The force of acceleration pressed everyone back hard into their seats.
And then.
It was airborne.
The enormous steel bird launched itself into the sky.
The cylindrical walls of the control room lit up with images. The external camera system mounted around the hull was feeding the view outside directly to the interior. Anyone sitting in the cabin could see everything around the ship with perfect clarity.
The cameras served another, more important purpose as well. They were Hades's eyes. Without the ability to observe its surroundings, it could not respond to anything around it.
The steel bird with its spread wings climbed higher and higher, the flames from its thrusters driving it toward its speed ceiling.
Brett extended his Observation Haki outward and assessed.
Vegapunk had not been exaggerating. Hades's speed was astonishing enough to be genuinely startling. Brett could hear it clearly: even long after Hades had torn across the sky and moved on, the roar of its passage was only beginning to reach the space it had already left behind.
This was speed far above the sound barrier.
Brett did not know precisely how fast fourth or fifth generation fighters from his previous life had flown, but he suspected Hades would not be slower. Possibly faster. The power system underneath it was capable of unleashing planet-destroying volleys without strain. That kind of energy output supported speeds that had nothing to do with ordinary engineering.
The steel bird cut through the sky freely. Banking, climbing, diving, rolling. Left, right, spinning, looping.
The people sitting in the cabin were feeling considerably dizzy.
"In terms of speed alone, this is extraordinary." Rayleigh's voice carried real admiration. "With this speed and the ability to fly, there is almost nothing on the ocean that could catch it. Except perhaps Kizaru and Brett himself. Even Imu's ultimate weapon cannot match this in terms of pure velocity."
"Of course not. I said the speed was something special." Vegapunk radiated satisfaction. "Now that we've demonstrated speed, let's try the firepower."
"Hold on." Brett spoke up suddenly. "Testing here is too likely to give us away."
Firepower at the ancient weapon level produced effects visible and detectable across dozens or even hundreds of nautical miles. Even if their location stayed hidden, a discharge of that scale would almost certainly alert Imu.
"Go higher," Brett said.
"Higher?" Shanks looked puzzled. "We're already very high up, Brett."
They were tens of thousands of meters above the sea. The stars beyond the world's edge were almost visible.
"Which is exactly why." Brett smiled. "Imu's weapon once carried the Bircans from the moon down to the Blue Sea. So why couldn't Hades take us up to the moon?"
"The moon?"
Franky's eyes went wide. "Are you serious?"
"That sounds excellent." Shanks lit up immediately. "No one in all of history has ever set foot on the moon."
"A lunar adventure?" Rayleigh laughed out loud. "Now that you mention it, Roger used to say after he reached Laugh Tale and learned the truth of everything, that he wished he could go see the moon."
"Then now is the time."
Brett smiled. He wanted to see for himself what Birca looked like, the ancient city the Bircans had left behind. The place where everything had started.
Before everything ended, it seemed right to visit the place where everything began.
"Hades. Take us up. Let's go to the moon. Let's see the place where it all started."
"Understood."
The steel bird turned its nose toward the sky and began to climb.
One clarification: in this world, the moon was not far from the Blue Sea. The Bircans' migration had not taken many days. The atmosphere of this world's space also contained air, as it must have, since Enel had made it to the moon and the automata Dr. Tsukimi built had traveled there on balloons.
In any case, the journey to the moon had begun.