Author's Note:
This little side step here takes a look at some of the other members of the American Pacific fleet. It tacks on to the last little bit with Enterprise and serves to introduce some more ships, some of whom are a lot less human friendly.
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Nemesis
Cast – Various
Fifty nautical miles north of Hawaii the red-haired battleship and brunette battlecruiser continue their patrol rotation.
"With all the fleet flagships and high profile vessels filtering through our beach house, we seem to spend a lot of time doing our patrols." Aska remarks.
Az shrugs, "We do have to follow orders."
"At least when they are around." Aska smirks in reply.
Arizona does not respond and continues monitoring her sensors as they sweep the area.
"Hey Az. You ever feel like, maybe the world was like focused on you, but now it has passed on and you are slowly falling into the background?"
Az sighs, "Aska, you really need to stop reading those manga."
Off the shore of Southern California, north of San Diego
A top the bridge citadel section of the distinctive old style battleship, a tall, light steel blue haired mental model gazed out towards the normally barren shore of part of what the local humans called MCCS Pendleton.
Her lightly tanned figure was clothed in a mid-thigh length sundress of white, with a yellow sash tied at her waist, and an old style black captain's frock. Dark stockings reached almost to the bottom of the dress and knee high grayish, flat-soled boots completed her 'look'.
She shielded her blue eyes with her hand as she pondered over what the humans on shore were doing. Earlier, a remotely operated frigate group of six vessels was sacrificed by the USN to lure several fog vessels to the area. The disturbance had drawn the attention of the first southern patrol fleet's flagship, the battleship named for the very state she was now off the shore of.
The humans were arranging what looked to be several large vehicles with what appeared to be large cannons with radar dishes attached to the muzzles.
California sighed and shook her head, "what are they doing exactly?"
Closer to the shore and slightly shielding California from view was a somewhat smaller battleship. Unlike the 'rebuilt' design of her flagship, this one was of a class still sporting the dreadnaught era styling. This was the battleship Utah. Her mental model sat cross legged on the roof of her observation deck a top the forward lattice mast. The rosy-pale dark brown haired girl wore dark blue pants, almost like jeans, with ankle-high dark 'leather' shoes. Her top was short sleeved and pleaded down the front. It hugged her upper body's curves tightly and was colored wine and black.
Utah opened her amber eyes and briefly regarded the human on the shore. She promptly closed her eyes and her five main photon turrets all turned towards shore, "I do not know, but let me just blast them a few times and not worry about it."
The two destroyers chirped their agreement with Utah and opened missile ports in preparation to fire.
California waved her arms at her subordinates, "Hold up there. Let's not be hasty."
Utah quirked an eye open in California's general direction, "Why? Whatever they are doing won't really work, plus it's not like I'm going to destroy their cores, their friends can just reform their bodies later."
It was California's turn to give Utah an upturned eyebrow, "I'm not sure that's how humans work. I'm fairly certain they are gone permanently when you destroy their bodies, or even majorly damage them."
Utah paused considering her data up to this point, she had destroyed a few vessels during the great naval battle. Judging by the statistics she could access via the internet and the tactical network, she had 'killed' quite a few humans. Nothing registered across her emotion simulators as she processed the data, so she proposed a test to herself. She focused her sight down the photon cannons of her highest mounted, forward super-firing turret.
As she focused directly on one of the humans, a rather odd sensation registered in the simulators, one that increased the closer she got to initiating the firing sequence. She backed out of the system, filing that for later as she stood her guns down.
"Perhaps you are right California."
The flagship sighed slightly, a tick of something briefly entered her voice, relief perhaps? "Yeah, like it… would only be sporting to let them try out whatever they got and all. They did give us a few frigates to play with. Just… direct all available power to your fields, get that waveforce armor up to two hundred percent."
A very clever destroyer, Charrette, chirped and added a host of tactical data to the two mental model's displays, as well as the internal squadron network. It showed a heavy energy draw to the location on shore. The energy she had traced to the old nuclear power station just a bit further up north. Charrette proposed a surgical strike against the power station which would easily knock out power to the site.
California observes the digital rendering of the huge shielded power cables that ran to the power distribution point. The portable box units the humans had hooked the cables into were very high on the EM emissions, especially heat.
The satellite dish cannons vehicles were different. Based on EM radiation emissions, the units were receiving all that power, but they were very cold. The estimated temperature was around eighty degrees kelvin, so they were likely using a type of liquid nitrogen cooling system.
"This is an interesting setup. That's a lot of power. If I had to guess, I'd say it was some type of laser or particle beam weapon."
Utah cracked open one of her eyes, "their technology really isn't even close to what we have. I'll measure their output against my fields. You should prepare to take out the nuclear facility, it is unoccupied. Looks like they are beginning."
On shore, the energy output began to climb and the units rotated into place, targeting Utah as she currently blocked access to California, and destroyers Charrette and Blue both moved farther out to sea.
The strike against her was above the waterline, starboard as that was the side facing shore, and amidships. The output did not even worry her until the humans coordinated the remaining two units with precise accuracy on the exact point of the first one.
Utah opened her eyes to observe more directly, "three of these at once has the output of one of our typical lasers. Not really a big deal."
As with many things in the universe, they seem to wait for the specific moments to escalate things. And escalate they did. The dishes on these strange lasers flared open fully and someone dialed up the power. The increase in intensity was very notable.
"It seems they have managed to find a method to produce somewhat coherent gamma rays." Utah replied as she rose to a standing from her cross-legged sitting position.
California face-palmed, "that is a really bad idea."
Utah leaped down to her main deck just inside her shield from the laser impact site and focused all her personal reserves, "I believe I may have underestimated them slightly. That unit all the power cables connect to must be a containment unit, it probably holds a couple of atoms of positronium."
"We will worry about that later, let's get moving, those things aren't very mobile or likely good at tracking moving objects."
Utah sighed as she watched the saturation thresholds rising dangerously high, "the excessive amount of such localized EM radiation is disrupting my gravity drive. They seem to have a good idea where my core is too, very suspicious."
California pulls up Utah's data feeds and for the first time in her existence feels an extremely unpleasant and growing sensation from her emotion simulators. Panic, she runs her calculations quickly, stumbling through a few of them making some very simple errors. She growls at herself and steels her resolve to save her fellow battleship, her friend, and prepares the only course she can.
"Charrette, Blue target all missiles on those nuclear reactors. Glass the whole area."
The two destroyers chirped in acknowledgement and began readying all ports for firing.
California opened all her missile ports and focused her targeting on what Utah had labelled as a containment unit.
"W… wait Cali, that's antimatter in there!"
California did not care about that, she needed to save her friend.
"Stop!" The ominously loud and somewhat familiar voice to the two battleships echoed through the tactical network and real-space simultaneously. This has an immediate effect of cancelling all attack preparations by destroyers and even California herself, much to her surprise.
A very fast PBY Catalina-like Fog aircraft zooms overhead and dives right at the beam, blocking it with a klein field.
California and Utah are surprised to find Enterprise of all ships to be directing her own field against the lasers, from an aircraft, while her hull supplies its full power capabilities from a far.
Further surprising the two, a human in a navy uniform opens a hatch and leans out with a megaphone, "Chuck! I order you to shut this experiment down now!"
Almost immediately the big lasers are cycled down allowing the Catalina to land. The two battleships notice some exchanges from the shore humans and the one Enterprise brought, these exchanges seem to be a lot of saluting on the shore humans' part as Enterprise's seems to do a lot of yelling. The two battleships really aren't interested though. Their focus is on Enterprise who stands proudly on shore and beckons the two of them to come to her.
The two disembark from their hulls, walking on the surface of the ocean to shore on small energy fields like stepping stones.
California confidently leaps onto the sandy and rocky shore as Utah gingerly alights upon it.
"I don't like this, it's all sand and rocks and so still." Utah moans.
California pats her head which earns her a few smacks on the shoulder from the shorter ship.
"So what's the deal here Enterprise?" Asks California as she continues to fend off the dreadnaught battleship's angry swats.
"The deal is showing up in the nick of time and saving the day." Enterprise declares.
"Really boss?" Utah inquires after stopping her angry assault on California's arm.
Enterprise smiles broadly, "Say Karen. We flew in the last second and saved the day. What does that make us?"
The Admiral who had finished her dressing down of the Marine Brigadier General and his officers turned and chuckled, "I would say that makes us Heroes, E."
To that Enterprise nods with a bright smiles, "Heroes," She pauses then adds, "Big Damn."
Off the Coast of Northern Chile
Much further south, another aircraft carrier and three heavy cruisers observe the situation. Well, the carrier and a cruiser observed the situation while the other two cruisers were harassing the locals.
The mental model of the aircraft carrier frowned and tossed her waist length pony tail over her shoulder in a barely concealed act of frustration. In the wind, the dark blue hair of the tail fanned out like five separate tentacles connected by a single scrunchie. She pushed the metal frames of the glasses she wore, watching the scenes of the almost wonderful return to hostilities as they crumble under the care of Enterprise.
"Enterprise…" The girl growls before composing herself. She smooths out her grey skirt and straightens her small red tie, absently brushing off some imaginary dust from her black, sleeveless blouse. The nanomaterial that composed her skin glistened in perfectly, untouched by the bright sunlight and as pale as cream. A final tugging at the thigh high black stockings that almost reached the bottom of her skirt and she raised her arms.
At that signal a shorter, and somewhat more tanned girl, dressed nearly identically, came forward and placed an officer's jacket on her shoulders. This jacket had gold epaulettes displaying four stars and incidentally the icon in the private data filters (i.e. glasses) worn by the taller girl used a circle of five stars for Enterprise in captions.
"Portland, how in the world did Enterprise manage to get there in time. She should have been half an ocean away."
The smaller redheaded heavy cruiser, Portland, shrugged, "Don't know ma'am, Yamato encountered her. Typically she deals with offenders to the Admiralty Code in her own way. I don't have intel on that as the High Flagship doesn't really share."
"Just more proof of the unfair treatment and favoritism. I would hate to think Hood is right about things, but every time I try to nudge things back to the way they should be, something interferes."
A sudden drop in pressure, followed by a loud explosion causes a brief massive amount of wind to blow. The carrier steadies her naval officer's hat as she squints her steel grey eyes at the commotion.
Some distance closer to shore, a heavy cruiser, this one of the New Orleans class, is standing off against a shore launched cruise missile. The mental model, a tall tanned girl with short brown hair and dressed like Portland, stood stalwartly on her own deck.
"That's all you got?" She yelled, "That's not going to kill me!"
The heavy cruiser saturated the shore, with the launchers, with plasma fire from her 8in/55 caliber equivalent main batteries.
The Chilean military responded with concentrated fire from artillery and mobile guns, as well as some very harsh words.
The heavy cruiser mocked them in even harsher language, with 'appropriate' hand gestures, and returned fire. With no harsh language being traded, she resumed her own chant of "This isn't going to kill me" every time they landed a hit and she returned fire.
A bit port and aft of her, another ship of the same class sat watching. The dark golden blond and light skinned mental model chuckled at her sister's antics, "Geez Minneapolis, we're going to run out of playthings if you keep that up. It takes them soooo long to reform."
Minneapolis ceased her heavy barrages, though not before she used a high angle laser to snipe a helicopter right in the handy red cross target they painted on its side. The girl stretched as she replied, "I guess you're right Astoria, I haven't let you play much. Though, why does it take them so long to reform you think?"
Astoria shrugged, "inferior materials, nanomaterial is just vastly superior."
The aircraft carrier scoffs, she knows full well that humans do not work like that, but doesn't particularly care to enlighten her subordinates. Instead she sighs as she gazes out at the horizon. I just want to do something more than just sitting around watching the ports and shores. I want the way things were like during the great naval battle. Lost in her own thoughts, she almost misses the heavy cruiser's comment.
"Lady Enterprise thinks she is a hero." Remarks Portland.
Elsewhere a fair skinned beauty dangles her legs over the port edge of the bow of a battleship, carefully moving a queen out of check she was placed in by a bishop. She laughs in a mildly amused way as her finely polished black shoes tap the area just above the numbers sixty-one.
The carrier strides over the large nine painted on her flight deck as she laughs, "A hero, really?"
Portland nods, "That's exactly what she said Essex, a Hero, Big Damn even."
Essex smirks, a twinkle in her steel grey eyes, "Well, every hero needs a villain."
Somewhere else and with carefully precise movements, the white gloved hands of a proper Japanese lady moves a very familiar looking bishop to a seemingly neutral position.
"I'm glad you can derive such enjoyment from this game Iowa-sama."
Quite a distance away from Essex or Yamato, the tall American beauty lays back on the deck of her vessel with a smirk, "one must entertain themselves as best as they are able Yamato-sama."
Reading between the lines:
The situation that lead Enterprise to be able to convince Admiral Karen Andersen of her plan and to go with an 'enemy' fog vessel is an adventure in and of itself. The next chapter gets back to Az and Aska and beach living.
