The Battle of the Mariana IslandsThe operator of Global Hawk tightens the focus.
An tentacle headed shape is riding on the water.
"Sir. A radio carrier wave. Switching!"
"Wo." Comes over the radio.
Begin chapter Wo
Laughter begins. "HAHAHAHAHA!"
Everybody in the room feels horror. Everyone listening to the radio on Guam, and the world, via satellites and ham operators that were listening in, does as well.
The Washington conference room, the Joint Chief's that were watching and listening and the White House, watching as well, can also feel it. Years later anybody listening to the recordings can still feel an echo of horror from the it.
Horror filmmakers, finally, can hear the laugh that they have attempted to create over the decades.
Mankind knows now, the Abyssal are not something from Earth.
There is something out there and it hungers.
Earth is on the menu.
After ten seconds it stops.
"Wo."
"Sir!" A hoarse voiced and shaky rating says. "The F-18's are on afterburner, they will be there in at anytime. One still has a Maverick on her. The other has two AMRAAM's. Both have rounds for their gun, sir."
"Kill her!"
The Global Hawk sees Wo turns in the direction of the F-18's.
They can see the Maverick enter its field of vision acting normally, but it shatters against the force field.
Both F-18's close to engage with guns.
But.
The pilot of one screams, "I've got to get away!" He points the Hornet up, at a high angle, turns on the afterburner, releasing every flare and countermeasure he can, and repeats "I'm ain't afraid." When he is several miles away and 35,000 feet high, only then does he regain control of himself and the plane.
The other closes with Wo, screaming "Die! Mother-Fucker!", until its engine fails when he is closest to Wo. The engines restart as soon as he passes over her. The momentary flameout distracts him long enough for Wo's CAP to shoot him down. There were no ejections.
The double sonic booms and shockwaves from the F-18's affected her the most. They cause her to rock on the waves.
Wo laughs, again.
"Harpoons?"
"Yes. Every ship." The Admiral orders.
"Sir?"
"'There is no such thing as overkill.'" Admiral Scott quotes. "I want her blown back to the hell she sailed from. Have the Global Hawk close, I want this on close-up. Record every detail."
"Yes, Sir." A second later. "On their way."
Everyone in the CIC glances at the Admiral and gains courage from his steady presence. Although, the officers nearest him can see small beads of sweat on his forehead and the fact that his hands are tightly balled into fists as he controls himself.
The Kanmusu and the sailors of the 7th Fleet get to see a sight rarely seen before, as the full force of a US Carrier Battle Group ripple fire a live war shot at the same target. 2 Cruisers, 7 Destroyers, and in the distance 3 more missiles emerge from the water from the subs, to attack Wo.
Wo waits.
A miniature Abyssal plane leaves the mouth in the tentacled monster, once it flies a few feet from her, it expands to full size.
"So that is the carrier." The Admiral breathes.
"Sir. We've finally killed that cyborg thing." The Air Group Commander whispers.
"Anything that will affect the harpoons?"
"They are tracking normally. So. No. But. We will see. There is a shocking stat, sir. One that we have to see what will happen against Wo, before we can do anything about it."
"Later, then."
The Global hawk dives lower.
Every missile fails when it gets within a few hundred meters of Wo. They tumble and fall into the ocean. One through a freak of aerodynamics manages to stay in the air and on target long enough to hit her forcefield.
When replayed in slow motion, the 15 feet long missile looks huge against her less than 6 feet height. But it disintegrates against her forcefield . There is no massive explosion, just the fuel going up. She does use her force field to part the burning debris as she steams past the collusion, unhurt.
Wo lifts her head back and laughs.
Everybody can now see that she is an albino human woman wearing a black and white bodysuit, a cape and a cane with a tentacled monster on her head. She is glowing a sickly yellow. Her eyes glow a dull gold.
"Wo."
A turret on that monstrous head points at the Global Hawk and fires. The picture vanishes.
"She 's gone, sir." A rating says, shakily. "Back to invisibility. No data."
Silence, except for somebody quietly sobbing.
Someone retches.
Admiral Scott notes that on the map, Wo is over Challenger Deep. He knows, now, why the Kanmusu are calling them Abyssals. She is directly over the deepest Abyss there is on Earth.
Somebody quietly says, "Cthulhu is an albino fetish-loving freak."
Silence.
Depressing, oppressing, frightening silence
"Come here you monster, then you will see hell again!" Over the open radio, Fubuki yells.
"I've got a torpedo with your name on it!"
"Stop being afraid of us and fight!"
"Come here and get a real fight!"
"My guns will show you who is boss!"
"Coward!"
The other Kanmusu also begin to broadcast insults and taunts at Wo.
Somehow, though, these taunts brighten the spirits of everyone feeling oppressed and frightened by Wo's laughter.
'I should have emptied the magazines into her, maybe that can overload her field. The habit of one ship one weapon was just too strong. I couldn't justify it to myself, much less to Washington. Now, I can, but I don't think she'll give me that chance again.' The Admiral thinks.
"I would like the area of effect of the field that killed the missiles and the F-18." Admiral Scott orders, softly.
"Aye, Aye, Sir."
"Does the telemetry of the missiles and the F-18 show anything?" He asks.
Noises, trying to attract his attention, are coming from the screen showing the Washington conference room, but Admiral Scott ignores them, as he works on restoring confidence, first.
"Nothing obvious, sir. It just stops. At the transmitter, from what I can tell."
"Hmm. When Fubuki tried to use her smartphone it didn't work." He says. "It must based on the same principals, but much, much stronger."
"Yes, sir."
"Try and keep a high flying drone, or F-18 on her wake. I still want her location. Make sure you update the Corpus Christi and the other attack subs. She has the night to stalk and try to sink her escorts. We may not be able to hurt her, but her escorts are fair game. Warn her about that field. I would hate it if she lost power underwater."
"Yes, sir!" The admiral's calm orders are finishing what the shipgirls started. The crew of the Reagan and the 7th fleet, as they are relayed the orders, start to get to work.
They have a leader.
One rating whispers to another, "That is what they call 3am in morning courage."
The other nods.
"Sailor." Admiral Scott turns to sailor that made the comment by Cthulhu.
"Sir?"
"Everyone, do not use that word in any official report. That is an order. She is not Cthulhu or part of that fictional universe. Using that word will lead to mistakes. Call them Abyssals, like the ShipGirls. Call her." A pause for thought. " A Wo-class carrier. Tomorrow we will find out if she is an escort, light and fleet carrier. But my guess is she's a fleet carrier and given the WWII origins of the Shipgirls, consider her an Essex for planning purposes."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Inform Guam that I want the evacuees loaded by midnight. I want the ships on the way to Tokyo by 1 am. They will need as much darkness as they can get."
"Admiral Scott!" Comes from the screen with Washington on it. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy is speaking. He is a new appointee, who has strongly supported the US Military Industrial Complex. He is pale and shaking, looking like he is in shock. One hand has a handkerchief that is sweeping up sweat on his forehand.
"Sir, Assistant Secretary?" He turns to it.
"You are still planning to evacuate Guam?"
"Of course. I'm not going leave anybody I can save. Not withthat in the area." He says harshly.
"That has totally changed the situation, Admiral."
Admiral Scott nods. "Changed reality in my opinion."
"Yes. Well. You can't beat her and if you stay and fight you'll lose, so it's time to cut our loses. Cancel the evacuation, they'll be safer on the island. Return to Tokyo."
The conference room in Washington erupts as the uniformed military disagrees with him and the business suited politicians back the assistant secretary.
Admiral Scott's eyes flick to the screen that is carrying the Joint Chiefs. Black.
The White House. Black.
Wo's laughter he assumes was too much for them. 'But, sooner or later, Washington will order him to return to Tokyo.' He thinks.
He mentally shrugs, 'If they delay just a few hours the evacuation will be underway and if I am able to protest and delay long enough, I can still rescue something out of this mess.'
"Inform, Commander Pacific Fleet of the verbal order and request a written and signed copy. Only then will such an order go into effect."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Tell Guam that my orders are to evacuate Guam and they are to ignore any orders to the contrary from Washington. No matter who is the source."
"Sir?"
"I'm not going run with my tail between my legs." Admiral Scott growls. "Tomorrow we may die, but those civilians will not."
The room starts to clap and yell, but the Admiral's voice stops it.
"Stop the task force 10 miles from Guam and steam in circles. We will train out here. Kurama and McCampbell are to oversee the ships at Saipan and Guam. Tell their captains that they have the full authority to relieve any civilian that is not doing their job. And that job is getting evacuees on board safely and on time." Admiral Scott orders.
"Yes, sir."
"Yes." The Surface Warfare Officer asks, "Are we going to attack it again?"
Admiral Scott shakes his head. "Until we know more, until we are better trained, no. Right now we would lose a large part of our air group and munitions for no damage. We are in a defensive fight right now. She holds the whip."
He shrugs, "Until we can figure out how that anti-tech field of hers works."
"We could set the missile to hit using simple ballistic courses, after their engines go dead?"
"Model it." He orders. "But, I'd bet between the non-aerodynamic air flow around a tumbling missile and her speed and maneuverability, hits would be few, I'd need to see how often we would hit, before I order any more attacks. If she decloaks, then, of course, we will empty the missile magazines into her."
"Yes, sir."
The Air Group Commander turns to the Admiral and says, "Sir. Do you want the report on the cyborg thing, now."
"Yes. What killed it?"
"It looks like a combination of attacks, than anything specific. Sir"
He grunts. "Details."
The Air Group Commander reads from his tablet, "Radar, IR and Laser sensors did not work, so those guidance systems are useless. GPS guided munitions: It was mobile enough that we could not predict its future course accurately enough to get a hit. In more confined waters, or against a slower, less maneuverable target they should be useful. Direct remote control: The RO can guide the weapons. But, at altitude, a man-sized target is very difficult to hit. We did not hit it. Training may correct this."
"Aiming for the wake?" The Admiral asks.
"Tried sir. The computers keep confusing the regular waves with wakes. It is a fixable problem, but one that looks like it'll take a computer patch a bit more complex than something we can generate on the fly."
He nods. "Continue."
He looks at the Admiral, "Coming down close, we did get some hits, but that brought us within its AA envelope. Nobody was shot down. But, on landing, two F-18's will not fly tomorrow and a third probably shouldn't. Also, this was under the condition of totally air superiority, the RO could concentrate solely on the target. In a contested airspace, sir, accuracy will suffer. sir."
The Admiral nods,
"Sub-munitions could not penetrate its forcefield. Unguided bombs missed. I'll have to find a WWII training manual on skip-bombing, before they'll be effective. It will take that training, but they will be effective."
He gulps, "Also, every missile that hit it, died an average of 2.3 meters from it. No transmissions, no power, it looks like."
"The anti-tech field grows. Fubuki only affected her handheld smartphone, a Cyborg is over 2 meters, my guess is that Wo's field has a radius of 250 to 300 meters. So, assuming it scales logarithmically: Heavy cruisers, somewhere in the tens of meters. Battleships, the same or larger than Wo's." The Admiral speculates.
"Getting around that will be a bitch, sir."
Admiral Scott nods. "Since we have the Kanmusu to test things on, we have a chance. But right now, dumb bombs with simple contact fuses are the only thing that will work as normal."
"Shit."
"I have a feeling that we will have to expand our curses. Shit and fuck seem to small for what they are doing to the laws of nature." Admiral Scott muses.
"Sir, we missed with a lot of munitions against the cyborg, and have 3, really, F-18's down for one kill. Sir, that does not sound good for future encounters. I'd hate to think what it would take to kill that bitch, Wo. Do we have enough munitions?"
Admiral Scott nods. "What worries me is future encounters as well. How quickly can they replace that light cruiser? It takes years for us to replace a ship, and months for the aircraft, especially if you include the pilot training. From the briefing papers on Kanmusu, they are getting new Shipgirls on a regular basis We must assume the same for Abyssals. If so, then they can afford to lose every encounter, but win the war since they will still have forces on the field, when we do not."
"Yes, sir." The Air Group Commander says sadly. The room echoes him, as what the Admiral says is passed around.
The room grows depressed, again at the thought of an endless fight against an infinite foe.
A few minutes later.
"Sir. Commander Pacific Fleet. In Private."
End chapter
A future chapter will be from Wo's POV.
Everything is going as planned.
Comments?
Thank you for reading
Jeff