Kaga pulled the bowstring back, breathing inwards as her arm came back. She sighted up an imaginary target ahead, adjusting her aim towards it as she steamed into the wind. Breathing out she released the arrow, the bow rotating in her hand as the shot flew true. Above the horizon the arrow split into a flight of six A6M5 Zeros, which then climbed into the air to assume a close air patrol pattern in the air above.
A perfect launch, one might even call that textbook. It was normal operations for Kaga. She didn't feel pride from a perfect launch. She'd made too many in her career, both as a steel-hull and after she'd returned.
Glancing to her left, she spotted Kestrel, a new flight of Zero's launching off her angled deck. Her bow deck was presently occupied by the four, much larger, F-14s that comprised the supercarrier's own air group. One of them was locked into one of her catapults, white steam billowing up around the plane's landing gear.
Kestrel raised the forward deck catapult and aimed at the horizon. A sudden whoosh and the jet rocketed off the deck. It began to fall, it's nose pitching upward as the pilot increased thrust, and it began to climb into the air. Despite launching earlier, the Zeros were left in the Tomcat's dust. They just couldn't compete with the jet's raw power.
Having to manage the aircraft of two carriers plus her own, it was no wonder why Kestrel's brow was knit into a look of stern concentration. Or maybe that was the aircraft she'd ranged out to try and find the enemy force. If Kaga's own experiences held true for a carrier of Kestrel's size, it was probably a mix of both.
"Kaga, Kestrel, have you found any sign of the enemy?" Nagato's voice suddenly popped up on the radio.
"Negative, Nagato-san." Kaga reported curtly.
"Nothing but a pod of whales to the southeast." Kestrel reported. "We're still looking. Any word from our American friends?"
"They're reporting back the same thing. No sign of the enemy yet." Nagato reported back.
"Well, we're all still a few miles out from the enemy's last known position." Kestrel pointed out. "We'll keep searching and report in if we find anything."
"Acknowledged Kestrel-san, Nagato out."
Silence once again reigned over the channel as the carrier fleet continued to steam behind the positions of the three battleship divisions. Tenryuu sailed ahead of the formation, DesDiv 6 holding positions to the sides and behind the division.
Another whooshing noise from Kestrel and another of the F-14s launched off her deck. Once the fighter was up safely, Kestrel quickly placed a new fighter on the catapult as faeries scrambled around it in their multicolored vests, preparing the fighter for launch.
One of Kaga's own CAP flights was low on fuel, and she raised her flight deck to allow them to land. The Zeros came in and performed textbook landings, her elevator quickly bringing the aircraft down into the hangar and clearing the way for her to launch another wing of CAP fighters.
She pulled an arrow from her quiver, notching it and pulled the bowstring back as she breathed in. Exhaling she loosed the arrow, and another flight of Zeros climbed up into the sky to continue their patrols.
"Man…" Tenryuu suddenly said from the front. "Where are the Abyssals? We should've seen something from them by now!"
"It doesn't matter." Kage stated. "They will be found eventually, we must simply concentrate on performing to the best of our ability."
"Tch." Tenryuu turned back to the sea in front of her.
"Hate to be that person here, but I gotta agree with Tenryuu on this one." Kestrel added. Kaga turned to the Supercarrier, who only shrugged. "I mean we've been sending out recon flights the whole time we've been here, and my radar and that of my fighters haven't even seen any enemy recon flights. We should be well within their range, and yet we've seen nothing."
"Then the enemy carriers are foolish." Kaga replied.
"Maybe." Kestrel conceded. "But I'd bet my money on them having another way to track us."
"Submarines?" Tenryuu wagered.
Kaga barely missed the almost imperceptible shiver that went up Kestrel's spine. "Yeah, probably subs." The supercarrier agreed.
Tenryuu cleared her throat. "Alright girls! Listen up!" Tenrryu addressed Desdiv 6. "We might have subs in the water! I want your eyes scanning the surface for any sign of those fish! You see anything you say so, understood?"
A chorus of "Hai" rose up from the four little destroyers.
"I'll have my radar techs watching the skies." Kestrel added. "If there are any planes inbound to our position, I'll let you know. Now I gotta call this in to the rest of the groups."
Kaga, was still skeptical of the idea of Subs being used for reconnaissance, her CAP would have spotted them. Actually, the more she thought about it, her CAP was watching the skies, not the seas, and her Recon flights were too far out.
She took a quick scan of the ocean around her before once again focussing on her flight groups. She had her duties to perform and the destroyers had theirs. She heard the sound of a helicopter spooling up and watched as a white helicopter lifted off of Kestrel's deck.
Right, the supercarrier was equipped for some anti-submarine duties. Something Kaga herself wasn't.
Hopefully the carrier was wrong about the subs.
-[]-[]-[]-
The Princess grinned as the reports from her fleet came in. The enemy, as she'd predicted, had come to finish off her fleet. And they had brought some new faces with them from across the sea. The submarines she'd recruited for her fleet were proving to be very beneficial to her plan. Despite its size, her fleet was undetected, while she was able to monitor her enemies' positions with ease. All she had to do was reign in her submarines until she had to spring her trap.
But there was a problem with her strategy. She hadn't fully counted on the presence of the new faces, the Americans. And they were getting uncomfortably close to her position. If they spotted her fleet, no doubt they would report her position to the other, much larger enemy fleet.
But they also provided an opportunity. Their fleet was small, and their members new and inexperienced. They were weak, and they would be easy prey.
And they would be the bait for her trap.
The Princess looked to one of her carriers. "Go, hunt the new faces." The Wo-class nodded, before turning away from the rest of the fleet, a group of cruisers and destroyers leaving with her. The Princess and remaining carrier began to ready their fighters for the coming battle. She was confident of her plan, and she could almost taste the bloody oil of her foes on her tongue. She would carry this day, and she would make them pay for damaging her fleet and sinking her ships.
The only thing she didn't know, is if that carrier was with them.
-[]-[]-[]-
Iowa steamed alongside Saratoga, her radar searching the seas and skies for anything resembling an enemy contact. The buxom blonde battleship had been cutting a path through the open sea for the past nine hours now, and so far she and her fellow Americans hadn't seen anything. Neither had the Japanese.
Her legs were sore, her fingers were twitchy and her main guns itched. She needed something to shoot at. All this waiting was driving her up the wall.
"For fuck's sake! Just show up already!" She grumbled aloud.
"Swear!" USS Eldridge shouted, pointing directly at the much bigger battleship and grinning from ear-to-ear. "You swore!" She repeated, still grinning and still pointing.
Holy shit Iowa didn't even know she was in that group. She didn't even say a word until now.
"Okay, where in the fuck did you come from?" She asked with a confused blink.
"Swear!"
"Yeah I know I fucking did! So what?"
"Swear!"
"Would you stop fucking saying that?"
"Eldridge, don't bait Iowa." Saratoga ordered with a resigned sigh. The destroyer escort in question only giggled, the three destroyers and one DE of the venerable Taffy 3 joining in. "Let's all stay focused, we don't know when the enemy will-."
"Contact! Enemy air strike coming in on our twelve!" USS Alaska reported from the front of the battlegroup, cutting off Sara. The other radar equipped ships in the fleet had picked them up by the time Alaska had finished speaking. Anti-air and dual-purpose guns were readied across the battlegroup, and radar-equipped ships relayed information to those that weren't part of the Radar Master Race.
"Finally…" Iowa muttered, cracking her knuckles and prepping her anti-air batteries. Next to her, Saratoga slammed a magazine filled with Wildcat fighters into her launch deck. A series of sharp cracks, sounded above the shouts of the American shipgirls as the standard carrier launched more fighters to intercept. The fleet was ready, those that could paying careful attention to their radar, watching the enemy aircraft slowly approach.
"Kestrel to Task Force Halberd."
"This is Saratoga, go ahead." The carrier began. "We've made contact with the enemy. Preparing to engage."
"Understood Saratoga, be advised that we suspect they might have subs in the water." Kestrel stated.
Iowa's head snapped to stare at Saratoga, eyes wide. "They got what now?!"
"Saratoga to Kestrel, how do you figure that?" The carrier asked, ignoring the battleship's outburst.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Call it a hunch, Saratoga. I think they're using them to track our movements."
Saratoga hummed in thought. It made a bit of sense actually. Why were they now staring at an incoming airstrike when they hadn't seen any sign of them until now? "Roger that Kestrel, we'll keep an eye out if we can. Saratoga out."
Iowa stared off towards the direction of the incoming airstrike. Instead of flexing and cracking her hands in anticipation of the fight ahead, she was fidgeting slightly as she sailed forward. Saratoga couldn't help but feel a bit of a pang of sympathy for the battlewagon. The Iowa's paid for their rapid construction with somewhat compromised torpedo protection, and a submarine lurking out there somewhere presented a clear and potential threat to her.
"You know we have destroyers and DE's around." Sara said softly. Iowa turned her head towards the standard carrier. The expression on her face wasn't so much fear as it was nervousness. "They're trained to deal with subs."
"Yeah." Iowa nodded. "Yeah they are."
"Just focus on the air for now." Sara said, just as her fighters began to close with the enemy. "Some of them are gonna get through, but I'll try and thin the herd a bit." Saratoga's planes closed to gun range, opening fire on the black triangular fighters in a squadron sized game of chicken. The two formations crossed, five enemy planes going down to Sara's four.
Her fighters circled around to make another pass, and were met by the enemy escort fighters breaking away to engage them, letting the bombers to continue on momentarily unopposed. With her fighters already set up for their attack run, Sara's group opened up the enemy formation, claiming another three kills before the skies turned to chaos.
More than anything else, Saratoga was reminded of the fact that Abyssals preferred quantity over quality, as her Wildcats were more than a match for the enemy flyers. Combined with tactics he pilots employed during the Pacific War against the Zero, for every one of her planes was shot down by the enemy, she could boast three kills.
Still she'd be dealing with this for a while if the numbers of planes the Abyssals had sent at them was anything to go by.
"Incoming!" USS Atlanta called out, bringing Saratoga out of her thoughts. Looking skyward, the carrier spotted the small dots that denoted enemy fighters.
"Alright girls!" Iowa bellowed, rolling her shoulders, the battleships powerful, yet usually overlooked, muscles rippling across her back. "We got some fucking bitches who don't know who their messing with! Let's give them a taste of good ol' fuckin' freedom!"
"OOH-RAH!" The battlegroup hollered as split second before the enemy fighters crossed into the effective range of their 5"/38's. The American battlegroup erupted, flinging lead at the enemy fighters, much of it with radar-guided precision. The enemy planes broke formation to try and break up the volume of fire that was coming at them.
Iowa took charge here, barking orders and directing shipgirls towards certain formations of enemy planes. The Abyssals dropped like flies, burning and shattered husks of fighters falling towards the sea. Iowa herself was best described as a volcano of American steel and cordite smoke as her dual-purpose guns and anti air batteries flung red-hot lead skyward.
But there were still so many enemy planes in the air, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that there would be some that got through. Such as one bomber with a torpedo slung under it's centerline bore down on the Destroyer USS Heermann. It was alone, it's friends having been shot down long before, and quickly fell to anti-aircraft fire.
But not before it released its payload, the torpedo plunging into the water and powering towards the destroyer. Heermann saw the torpedo drop, and wheeled around to avoid the attack, simultaneously calling out the fact that there was a torpedo in the water heading for the rest of the fleet. None of the other ships were hit.
As the battle raged, USS Alaska picked something up on her Radar. Surface contacts, about sixteen of them, steaming directly for the American battlegroup, the biggest ones looked to be about the size of Treaty Cruisers. With the speed they were approaching, they'd be on top of Task Force Halberd before the enemy airstrike was over.
Alaska's heart sank into her stomach. Having to deal with an enemy surface fleet and an airstrike at the same time? "Uh, girls?! I think we have a problem!"
-[]-[]-[]-
Stantsii deystviy!*
Her eyes fluttered open, gazing up at the clear sky. She felt the water lapping at her skin, seeping through clothes she'd never worn and hugging limbs she'd never had. Her side and face still ached, a memory of her final moments. A memory of the pain.
To anyone else, such things would have given her pause. But she was trained. She was prepared for the strange and surreal. Such was the mandate of the Yuktobanian Navy.
She sat up, strangely not sinking into deeper into the water but sitting atop it. She got to her feet and took in her surroundings as waves cashed against her shins. She was upon the open sea, a few scattered fluffy clouds and the sun high in the sky the only things to break up the continuous blue of her surroundings.
She took a moment to take in her new appearance. Instead of a ship, she was now inhabiting the body of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl, her skin was fair and her blonde hair long and tied back in a loose messy ponytail. She wore a white tank top under a black short-sleeved cropped jacket, the antlers of the Yuktobanian Republics on her left shoulder and the flag on her left. She wore a matching pair of shorts with red and yellow lines tracing around the bottoms. Her shoes were standard navy dress.
But she also noticed something else. She still had her weapons, scaled down to fit her new form. On right forearm was the four tube launcher for her anti-sub/surface-to-surface missiles. On her left were the two turrets of her twin-mounted 76mm naval cannons, one on her shoulder, the other mounted to her wrist. Clamped to her thighs were the two four-tube torpedo launchers, and on her back rested the two launchers for her short-range SAMs.
She glanced around at her surrounding once more, this time opening up her radar suite, reaching out further than her eyes could allow. She was surprised when her vision was overcome with a collection of symbols as her radar returns came in. Momentarily stunned, she reached up to rub her eyes and her hands pressed up against something hard.
Glasses, she had glasses. A pair of thin-framed glasses sat on her nose, acting like a heads-up display. In the bottom right corner of her vision she saw an ammunition counter for her weapons. On the left-hand side saw an indicator for speed and engine setting, and on the top she saw a compass readout which showed she was staring to the southeast.
She looked to the left and spotted surface unknown surface contacts, about twelve, denoted with a yellow circle with an X through it. To her systems, that meant Neutral, non-combatants. Likely because there was no other way to classify them on her HUD right now. But above and around them, swarmed dozens of aircraft, and her systems screamed enemy when she looked at them, containing them in green boxes. More enemy surface vessels were heading for them, the green circles tracking their movements.
She wanted to intervene, do something, if only to sink and shoot down what her systems considered enemies. But she was only one ship! What could she possibly do? Her sinking had proved that a lonely ship is as good as dead.
Suddenly a voice came over her comms on a secure channel. Female and speaking in fluent Yuktobanian. "This is Destroyer Gumrak of the Glorious Yuktobainan Navy! Enemy Forces have been sighted! To any Yuktobanian vessels in the area, I am transmitting coordinates to regroup! We must defeat the enemy for the glory of our fleet! Respond if you hear this message!"
More voices cut in over the channel. "This is Destroyer Chuda. I'm with you Gumrak!"
"Destroyer Dub. On my way!"
"Destroyer Bystry! All engines ahead flank!"
"Corvette Budusheye! Moving to support!"
She smiled momentarily. She wasn't alone, not entirely. She had a chance now. She cleared her throat and opened a channel. "This is the Frigate Pitmnik! I'm moving to the rendezvous point and preparing weapons! For the glory of the Yuktobanian Navy!"