Eternal had been sitting for some time with Nagato when someone brought in a letter.
"What is it?" Nagato asked.
Eternal handed her the letter.
It was written in pencil on notebook paper. It read:
20 8 5 18 5' 9 19' 4 1 14 7 5 18' 13 1 25' 3 15 13 5' 22 5 18 25' 19 15 15 14' 15 14 5'
6 15 7' 13 15 22 5 13 5 14 20 19' 9 14 20 5 14 19 5' 5 24 16 5 3 20' 9 23 15' 10 9 13 1
"What do you make of it?"
"Well, what do you make of it?"
"It's obviously an attempt to convey secret information."
"But can you recognize the cipher?"
"Wait..."
Eternal took out a notebook and copied down the message.
"5 appears the most. And the dominant letter is 'E'."
After a half-hour, Nagato stared at Eternal, who was working on the notebook, now covered with numbers.
"5. If that stands for E... then... E is the fifth letter. And... 20... T... Ha! T, and now H. And then E. And then R. And E again. There. And now the ' mark. Like it's for splitting the message into words. And now the second. Is. And... God!"
Nagato had no idea what she was talking about.
"What is it?"
Eternal handed her the message.
"Mobilize your forces, fast! I'm off."
Nagato read through the message. And her face grew pale.
For written on the paper was the deciphered message:
There is danger may come very soon one
Fog movements intense
Expect Iwo Jima
For a moment, she was unable to move, frozen by terror. When she picked up the phone, her hands were trembling.
Enterprise was seated at her room, reading a novel. Today was a calm Saturday. A day for relaxation. So, she was delighted to have her phone ring. Nagato. No doubt calling for some friendly talk.
She picked up the phone.
"Heya, Nagato, nice day, huh?"
Nagato's voice, however, was anything but normal.
"I've... I've just got a message. A cryptic one."
Enterprise was suddenly filled with dread.
"What do you mean?"
"Eternal has just gotten an encoded message. It reads:
20 8 5 18 5' 9 19' 4 1 14 7 5 18' 13 1 25' 3 15 13 5' 22 5 18 25' 19 15 15 14' 15 14 5'
6 15 7' 13 15 22 5 13 5 14 20 19' 9 14 20 5 14 19 5' 5 24 16 5 3 20' 9 23 15' 10 9 13 1
And you must get your forces to battle stations, fast."
"Why, though? I can only imagine a string of numbers."
"Eternal said that the numbers stood for letters. For example, 1 would be A, 2 would be B, and so on."
Enterprise's voice was filled with dread.
"So..."
"Yes. It reads a warning. It runs:
There is danger may come very soon
Fog movements intense
Expect Iwo Jima."
Enterprise was speechless.
Until the operator announced that the call was terminated.
"All prepare for battle!"
Nagato sailed with her fleet. Her mind was still reeling over the strange encoded message that supposedly disclosed that the Fog was gonna attack at Iwo Jima. Eternal, on the other hand, was calm and collected. She, upon decoding the cryptic message, at once barged her way into Yamato's room. The commander had no time for even a word before Eternal was yelling for her to scramble her forces for Iwo Jima, since the Fog was gonna attack there. She had arranged her fleet in a half-moon pincer arrangement, the result of days of experience in playing real-time strategy naval games. Eternal had positioned her trio in the center, planning to grandslam the Fog with her hyper-caliber sheer firepower. Nagato had asked for Galactica.
"I ran into Kongo a while ago. She had said that the girl had some serious injuries.
She's running a fever of forty, for starters. And she's got a shot through her shoulder, one through her side, and one which grazed her skull. She's not recovered from her comatose state yet. She's gonna be out for a while. And she's always saying this thing which sent chills down my spine."
"What?"
"She keeps saying: 'The Cylons. They're back. And they're foes.'"
The Fog fleet soon got into view.
"Ummm..."
The opening volley had absolutely no effect, rattling off the cruiser shields. The rest of the fleet dodged the shots, and then lifted their guns for a counterattack.
Bright, shining ropes of tungsten shot out of the MACs, as the rest of the fleet's guns cracked off their salvos of AP rounds.
Eternal's 50mm gums soon began cracking off their AP rounds, and the same can be said for Dawn. And they soon warmed up their Phalanx CIWS turrets. The results were devastating. Cruisers slammed to pieces by the 50mm slugs, destroyers had their shields gone, dreadnoughts with their middle ripped off. And the missiles entered the fray. Archer missiles left the pods, zeroing on their targets.
Thousands of them.
Sixty missiles a pod for two ships with thirty-two each isn't going to be a small amount.
The enemy point defenses tried to get them down, but when you're get three-thousand-plus missiles(total at 3840), you're toast.
No matter how advanced your AA guns are.
The results were disastrous, for two reasons.
One, the missiles carried two-megaton thermonuclear warheads, which all but obliterated cruisers in one hit.
Two, they generate an EMP, which proceeds to fry pretty much everything within a good seven-hundred yards.
Yikes.
In response, the Fog carriers began launching hundreds of fighters, intending to swarm the ship girls with sheer numbers.
But the Phalanx was ready for them.
Bright, fast-flying 20mm rounds flew into the sky, as the Longswords, Sabers, and Longsword Interceptors left the hangars. As the other carriers, say Saratoga or Kaga, also did the same.
The 20mm slugs slammed into the enemy fighters, one-shotting them to shreds. As the Fog torpedo bombers began approaching, 20mm rounds went straight through the Fog fighters as if they were, well, paper. The Fog fighters then proceeded to engage in a brutal dogfight with the ones launched by the carriers. The Longswords unleashed the worst, raining 110mm rounds that could say nothing save for the fact that it complete and utterly obliterated the enemy fighters like bullets through molten butter. As the battle entered its final stages, the Fog revealed its nastiest weapon.
No, not a Fog Zumwalt, no, not a Fog Resurgent, nah, nah.
This weapon is waaaaaaay more devastating!
Say, a one-point six kilometer wedge-shaped vessel with a thousand solid-beam cannons.
The Fog called it an Exterminator. And Exterminator it was, for its sheer firepower forced the ship girls to retreat. And then Eternal charged up her MAC, as Dawn did the same, and the coils around the barrel of their MACs, which was similar to a Battle Rifle, took aim, and fired. But it was wasted, however, because as the enemy shots rattled off the cruisers's shields, the MAC slugs ripped its hull in half in a single shot. The remaining slugs proceeded to shred five more Resurgents, and the shockwaves created a tsunami that all but rolled the rest of the Fog fleet keel over bridge.
Eternal took out her wristwatch, which also served as her sensor display, and comms unit.
"Firebox Two, Base."
"Base, Firebox Two."
"Enemy forces cleared. This appears to be a naval assault, with the goal of securing superiority for the amphibious assault."
"Understood."
"Any enemy contacts?"
"Negative enemy contact on all radar stations."
"Understood."
Nagato edged towards Eternal.
"Is it done yet?"
"Mission accomplished. Congratulations."
The assembled ship girls stared off to the sunset.
"The war isn't at its end yet."
Eternal had been seated for some time in Nagato's office, reading a Sherlock Holmes novel when Nagato spoke up.
"Eternal?"
"Yes?"
"How did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"The Battle of Iwo Jima. The code. If I remember correctly, it's a number cipher, right?"
"Ah, yes. Now, you're saying that you want me to tell you how I did that."
"Exactly."
Eternal took out her notebook. Written on it was the cryptic message:
20 8 5 18 5' 9 19' 4 1 14 7 5 18' 13 1 25' 15 14 5' 6 15 7' 13 15 22 5 13 5 14 20 19' 9 14 20 5 14 19 5' 5 24 16 5 3 20' 9 23 15' 10 9 13 1'
Written underneath, was the decoded message:
There is danger may come very soon.
Fog movements intense expect Iwo Jima
"As you're well aware of, the letter E is the most dominant letter of the English language. It's so common that even a simple sentence must posses one. In this message, I see the number 5 no less than nine times. Assuming that the message was written in English, I accepted it as a possible hypothesis and accepted that E was represented by 5. Now, I got to the hard part. The letters in use frequency after E, would be, speaking roughly, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and L are the numerical order in which letters occur, but T, A, O, and I are very nearly abreast of each other, and it would take forever to try each combination until each combination until a meaning was arrived at. I therefore searched for new material. As you are aware, E is the fifth letter of the Latin alphabet, which is the alphabet used by the English language, and as E is represented by 5 it is possible that the numbers are referring to letters in numerical order. Therefore, the first five numbers would be T, H, E, R, E, and so on."
"But there are ' symbols, so what do you make of them?"
"That they are used to break the message into words. Suppose you get a 'ThereisdangermaycomeverysoononefogmovementsintenseexpectIwoJima' would you make any sense of it?"
"I understand now."
"And now, the remaining question is one that is worth a million bucks."
"Which one?"
"Who sent the message?"
After the Twelve Colonies landed back at Kobol, they settled down to a period of development and humanity as we know it.
But the enemies we've escaped aren't gone yet. Over the years, the Cylons slowly amassed a massive fleet—many thousands of Base-stars.
They've vowed to destroy the lot of humanity, and do it they did. But, they will not achieve their goal. They will learn that humanity will be hard fighters. They will never give up. Ever.
As we stand over Victory Hill, our faces turned towards the sunrise, as that photograph entitled The spirit of '53 shows, we shall follow the oaths our fathers had died for, to the very end.
Those dead,
They shall not have sacrificed their lives in vain.
Nor;
Shall they ever will.
We swear it.
We shall die for it.
A/N:
I've been hard at work for the past three days on this, so yeah.
This fanfic is gonna continue for a while, but I will disclose no spoilers.
Thanks for all for reviewing, following, liking, and reading!
"The heroes have three types:
Heroes immortalized in letters of steel;
Heroes forever engraved in pillars of stone;
Heroes resurrected from the abyss with Hearts of Iron."
—Richard J. Saunders, Fleet Admiral,
Commander of Battlegroup Ohio.