AN: A couple months of thinking had made me realize… The story needed a partial re-write, so I cut out the Patton segments, and am focusing more heavily on Rosie and Oregon from here on out, and on the shipgirls in general really.
The year is 206X of the Anno Domini calendar. Humanity is under attack from the seas where they had plied trade, harvested food, and waged war for centuries. The so called Abyssals have overrun several isolated Islands and bombarded major cities and naval bases along the coastlines, their very presence forcing the evacuation of small towns and island territories. Although initial casualties have proven surprisingly light, especially among military forces, the material damage is far higher… Hundreds of liners, merchant vessels, and warships disabled and trapped in ports, clogging up drydocks as they await repairs or scrapping, or outright sunk further out at sea. Many more small fishing boats and private craft were destroyed with all hands.
On land and near shore. Airport runways were cratered, coastal railway lines and highways shattered, major ports smashed to pieces and oil rigs rendered inoperable. And while humanity's weapons prove effective against the land and air forces of the Abyss, they were found to be utterly worthless against their warships.
Drones, long the vaunted weapons platform of the future, had been rendered worthless against the Abyssals, who scramble targeting data and rendered control signals impotent with mystical energy. Not even Nuclear weapons or railguns could take down Abyssal ships or installation-classes, being absorbed by energy fields or regenerated at a disturbingly fast rate.
As if in response. The first entities known as shipgirls appear. Legally classified as Semi-Biological Terrestrial Entities, these warships in human form can more effectively fight the warships and installations of the Abyssal fleet, smashing past their defensive shielding and regenerative powers. Japan, Britain, Italy, Russia, France, Canada, Australia, and the United States of America proceed to attempt to revive the strength of their old navies through these so called Fleet Daughters.
In the United States, only some of the pre-war carriers plus a handful of CVLs and CVEs, have apparently to remake the once vaunted American Carrier forces, while most of the Battleships of the US Navy emerged to retake their glory in turn… Their legendary wartime carriers have largely remained seemingly out of reach… So far as anyone outside the upper echelons of the US military and intelligence community know… As has the Superbattleship USS Oregon.
Meanwhile in Japan… A summoning is about to get very interesting…
Admiral Hiroto Nakamura stared at the summoning chamber as Kaga stood next to him, two technicians overseeing the Large-Scale summoning process, nicknamed Large Scale Construction or LSC internally, from a series of consoles, fairies were scattered about. The Tosa-class battleship raised an eyebrow.
"Are you certain we need another carrier? Those four Zuikaku-class girls have proven to be rather… Annoying at times, but nonetheless capable." The battleship muttered.
"Houshou and her sister, the first Shoukaku, have stated that our navy is too heavy with Destroyers, Battleships, and light cruisers. I am inclined to agree with them, Izumi, Mikasa and Fuji with their 51cm guns are useful… But we need planes… Badly…"
"Very well then… Start the procedure." Kaga ordered.
The armored windows, enhanced by the same arcane sciences that created shipgirls to be capable of taking anything short of a direct hit from a nuclear weapon, opaqued as the summoning chamber brightened, the environment inside quickly becoming hostile to anything not a shipgirl or a fairy.
"Sir… You think it's gonna be another CA?" One of the technicians, Hirota according to the name embroidered on his uniform, questioned.
"I hope for our sake it's not… Besides what heavy cruisers and battleships do we have left to summon?"
"There's always…" Kaga started.
"She's not coming back to us Kaga… The way the we left her to rot in Simpson Harbor at Rabaul, while we saved everything else of value ensured that." Nakamura sighed, the event in question was a sore point in Japanese military history, and particularly with the IJN shipgirls.
"Hiroto…" The battleship murmured softly.
"My great grandfather died trying to put out the fires raging in her engineering spaces before they just abandoned her. Leaving his wife and two-year-old son behind" The rather youthful man admitted. "Kaga, I'm only at this position because they arbitrarily picked someone, anyone, in fighting shape that had a decent knowledge of old naval tactics, or someone who could learn them fast enough anyways… Even after Yamamoto and many other Imperial Officers were summoned as part of the "leadership renewal program" I'm still one of the few go to men in the self-defense forces…"
"Akagi and Admiral Yamamoto seemed close." Kaga muttered.
"He was her captain once. That's why he chose her as his secretary ship."
"That girl has no pride as a battleship…" Kaga mused halfheartedly.
"Your argument is weak Kaga, you're usually better when clashing words with Musashi…" Nakamura teased, eliciting a blush in response.
"With all due respect sir, save it for the bedroom." The other technician joked, earning a couple scowls. "Yeah, I get it, not funny." He promptly grumbles about killjoys.
"Sir… Something's happening… The ship is ID'd as a carrier, but the tonnage is listed as over forty thousand tonnes…" The first technician muttered.
"Accelerate construction then." Nakamura ordered and a group of ship construction fairies unseen to the window crew moved up, firing ten rapid construction devices, glorified flamethrowers turned welding devices, into the energy flux that was typical of a summoning.
"Only a handful of carriers were that big in our navy and we've summoned all of them…" Kaga mused.
"Not all of them Kaga… We had one more postwar… Taiyou…"
"But sir Taiyou has already been…"
"The Taiyou I refer to is an ex-US Navy Midway-class carrier purchased in the late seventies as part of the refinement of the Self Defense forces… The former USS Franklin D. Roosevelt…"
"Sir… She participated in the Battle of Samar… With… her… as escort…"
"The past is the past Kaga… She spent thirty years as a ship of the Self Defense Forces…"
"But what if the Americans want her back immediately… We'll be trapped in another 'Indestructible' situation like we were with the British…"
"We'll come to that impasse when it's time…" Nakamura sighed as the light began to clear. Revealing exactly whom he thought it was… He sighed and tapped the mic, catching the green haired shipgirl's attention.
"I am Rear Admiral Hiroto Nakamura of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces… I understand you must be confused to be summoned in Japan instead of the states… But all will be made clear as soon as we can clear you for a briefing on the state of global affairs…"
The rather voluptuous young woman standing on the summoning floor below nodded, her piercing golden eyes seeming to track Nakamura and Kaga's movements as the two moved to confer with eachother.
"Sir… There's more than a few girls who will want her dead… The Hiei sisters for what happened to Myogi and the Taihous for what happened to Kenhou and Jinhou… And for the Hakuryuus… Well you get the point…"
"Contact high command… We need this locked down before someone does something stupid and ends up pissing off the Americans…" Nakamura ordered.
Kaga spared one last glance at the shipgirl down in the summoning chamber. "Yeah… Let's hope that it doesn't lead to World War IV…" She mused.