The moment the helicopter was cleared, leaving only two of them, the silence between them lasted for a while as both felt awkward about what they are going to discuss. With some hesitation, Alexander began.
"You must be wondering about why I wanted to talk to you alone," Alexander said, his legs close together, hands on his knees, and his eyes wandered to her feet, trying not to stare her in the face.
"I apologize, I don't have any idea, Your Majesty," Elaina said, trying not to appear as tense as she felt.
Yet she knew what he is thinking about.
Nervousness impending both from speaking about the elephant in the room.
Alexander stalls for time by reaching into his pocket for a cigarette case, opening up the metal container that contains the paper tubes of tobacco and a lighter.
"Do you smoke?", Alexander asks as he offers her the smokes.
"I...do not, Your Majesty..." Baroness Elaina Serebyakova replied, hoping the Tsar does not choose to smoke inside the enclosed cabin of the helicopter.
"I see, sorry about it. I will put it away," Alexander closes the box and returns it to his pocket.
'Whelp. Here it goes.'
Alexander thinks for a moment before looking up at her
"Well. . . you see. . . you and I. . . had a thing in the past."
He leans back into the seat, forming words to facilitate his first ever breakup with a woman his body's younger self had a fling with.
"I believe that...we both should keep that night a secret between us and at best, forgotten."
He places his hands close together near his face, like a prayer.
"It is a past that is best forgotten. A past dangerous enough that our enemies could, if they find out, harm both of us." Alexander revealed and continued. "It is selfish of me, but please forgive me. I was young and foolish then, thinking about having fun and not the consequences. Now that I have a wife and responsibilities of taking care of the country, I realized how terrible I was then. I hope we can just keep that moment forever locked away and sever any knowledge we had of each other.."
"I.. . I agree as well..." Elaina agreed as she rubbed her fingers together, remembering her night with Alexander when he was just a spoiled rebellious prince, her heart rate picking up slightly. "Let's forget that there was a thing between us. That doesn't seem too bad an idea. I also was pretty foolish that night, I did the same thing as you did, and I too should share the blame..."
Alexander sighed in relief, his tensed-up muscles relaxed as he expected it to be worse.
"Great. I believe we have reached an understanding," he said, standing from his seat. He held his hand out to Elaina, pulling her to her feet.
"Now, after you, my lady." Alexander offered.
Elaina blushed at that, even though they had just broken up, his charm towards women has only gotten better with the years.
Elaina nodded and he opens the helicopter cabin door for her, the gentle sea breeze of the morning hitting her. She couldn't help but feel bothered about His Majesty bringing that up. If she was being completely honest with herself, the idea of forgetting about everything that happened between them hadn't crossed her mind, until today.
His Majesty is the one who is troubled by their past and he wanted to address it to her to clear up his mind. She wasn't sure, but that is sounding to be the case.
Upon exiting the helicopter, Rolan and Andrei, who both were standing away from the helicopter sharing cigarettes, turned and approached them, concern written across both their faces. "Elaina, are you okay? You look pale." Andrei asked, looking over her daughter worriedly.
She simply smiled in response and patted his arm. "Of course, I am, father. His Majesty just wanted an assurance in future projects, and I pledged it," she lied smoothly.
"I see," Andrei nodded, not wanting to inquire too much about possible sensitive information. He then turned to Alexander. "Your Majesty. Is there anything else you'd want to discuss?"
"Nothing particularly," Alexander replied with a shrug. "You may leave now at your discretion. I'll just hail you up on the telephone once the new designs for the carriers and the submarines are completed, the one earlier is just a draft."
Andrei raised an eyebrow. "Remind me, Your Majesty. When I was building the Petropavlovsk Class Aircraft Carrier. I just read a naval doctrine about the uses of aircraft carriers and its strategic role in naval warfare," he said, his gaze turning hard and focused. "Why is it that we are building a lot of them? Even designing a new class with a new unconventional propulsion system. I understand building submarines but aircraft carriers? We don't have colonial or overseas territories..."
Alexander scoffed and ran his tongue around his cheek.
"Ah yes," he finally uttered. "I'm aware of your concerns about why we are spending money building up our naval fleet, specifically aircraft carriers. That's understandable because despite our five digits coastlines we are a landlocked country with no easy access to the oceans, yet we build aircraft carriers," Alexander walked forward, staring at Andrei's eyes intently. "I'm liking you, Andrei. You're insightful. But there is this thing called ambition. I want the Ruthenia Empire to have a blue-water navy like the Britannia Empire. Where we can spread our influence around the world. And don't worry, the aircraft carrier we just completed building is unlike any other, so it's not a waste of money."
Alexander concluded, patting Andrei's shoulder. Andrei nodded stiffly in acknowledgment.
Alexander breathed out slowly as he looked up to the island of the Petropavlovsk Aircraft Carrier. He watched the radar spinning atop of it. AN/SPS-48 and AN/SPS-49, a cold war era air search radar that can detect targets from 470 kilometers that are flying under 45,720 meters. Pre-world-war and world war 2 planes would be detected easily.
Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers are also equipped with advanced electronic systems. With that, the Imperial Ruthenian Navy became a force to be reckoned with. No longer will they succumb to a humiliating defeat incurred by the Yamato Empire.
Now that the military naval warships are set, it's time to focus on the merchant fleet. Alexander had the ambition to dominate the world by trade. To do that, he'll need a copious amount of merchant fleet to transport goods of the Ruthenia Empire across the world.
To do that, he has to introduce something revolutionary.
Alexander scans around the port and points at a ship loading up cargo.
"See that merchant vessel loading over there?"
Andrei and Elaina looked to where Alexander was pointing and spotted a merchant ship where goods were being loaded by men and slings lifting the crate into the hold of the ship.
"Take a guess of how long that ship has been here in the dock. Elaina, what's your guess?"
"A day?" Elaina guessed.
"How about you, Andrei? Do you want to take a guess?"
"Three days?"
Alexander shook his head. "Both of you are wrong. That ship has been here for a week already."
He revealed but the two don't look surprised. "Well, it's normal to take that long, Your Majesty."
"No, I don't think that's normal. In fact, it is very slow," Alexander commented.
In his past world, this whole procedure of loading and unloading goods only took less than an hour. You see, money is directly proportional to the speed of trade. Imagine the merchant sea just now took one week to finish loading cargo piece-by-piece, it'll sail across the world and unload it, that process will take another week then load again and the cycle repeats. It's not efficient. The process took very long. Fun fact, merchant ships before the era of containerization spend a lot more time in the dock than on the voyage. All that time and money was wasted. It's just sad.
Containerization changed all of that. Instead of loading the cargo in a method called break bulk cargo, where goods are loaded onto the ship, no matter what kind of goods it is, are packed tightly in the hold, taking the whole process more than a week to complete. Whereas containerization changed all of that where the cargo is instead loaded into standard metal containers at the manufacturers, onto the trucks, and just stacked onto the container ships like bricks. It saved a lot of time, effort, and money.
One more good thing about this method is that there'll be no theft of goods. The theft of goods was so rampant before containerization. Where dock workers' wage is less than what they stole. Or the sailors themselves skimming a bit from the cargo as many containers still uses fabric sacks and wooden barrels that will sometimes break or sprung leaks.
This whole shenanigan needs to change for the better.
"Well, Andrei, care about another meeting? I just have the solution to this long process of cargo loading. You know how canned sardines are packed?"
