Georgia POV

I nodded, before diving down, my back to the surface almost like I was snorkeling. I raised Chitose on my radio to keep talking.

"I'll get in touch with your human Captain so we can confirm wich targets we want saturated. I didn't see anyone that would fit the bill for Jersey, but I spotted a trio of Ru-class Battleships under the suspension bridge we met-up at, along with escorts. Looks like they are set up for long-range fire support, might want them gone too." Most likely they'd agree to any target I was willing to shoot at. Not like they could afford to be picky, I raised the man regardless, using the frequency the Frigate-girl had provided me with.

"Hey there, Mr. Lu? This is Georgia speaking, you copy?"

"Yes, Ms. Georgia, I read you loud and clear." I made a noise of belligerence at my title. "If I am Mr. then you are Ms."

"OK OK... Captain Lu, just call me Georgia alright? Maybe even USS Georgia if you wanna be formal, though at this point I doubt I'd count as a part of the US navy... You must be hearing me well enough to be able to troll so I'll just lay it out for ya. My UAV I sent off to the Carrier group got within marking distance. It looks like three full Wo-class fleet Carriers with a cluster of Cruisers and Destroyers guarding them. I sent off my other drone directly downriver and there's a heck-load of ships, but more interestingly, there's a trio of Ru's set up for on-call bombardments in their backline. Where they are standing still I should be able to nail them just about as easily as the Carriers." The human officer was silent for a moment, before;

"No sign of the enemy flagship? New Jersey? She should look like a tall pale woman with horns and a black dress, intel mentioned her radar looks like a tiara as well" The big-bad Battleship wears a freaking Tiara? Really? You know what? I'm not even surprised.

"None, though there's another pretty big lady in-among the forces moving upriver, has big armored boots and arms, big Rigging too, looks a lot like a Carrier to me, no funny mushroom-hat though, so she's probably not some kind of Wo-class."

"No idea who that could be, we've been hearing about abnormally fast Abyssal fighters derived from jet-fighters, maybe she is the cause? Regardless, if you are able, try to put her down as well as any other large Capital ship you see, if we take out enough of their command structure, they will be thrown into disarray, leaving them open to another ambush. I'll order a few platoons and a tank section to reinforce what's left of our forces to the south. Once you strike, they will keep the pressure on."

"Alright, sounds good, uh, I'll let the others know, over and out." I switched to Chitose's channel.

"Alright! The Captain just got off the horn with me! he's given the go-ahead to hit the Carriers and long-range support. Hopefully that'll buy some breathing room for us and the reinforcements moving down the South bank for another ambush on the main force. I'll also send the last few dozen 'hawks at the big-boats in the main formation, see if we can send 'em into a panic by taking out a capital ship or two." She acknowledged me as I divvied up my missiles targets.

"Alright, four into each of the Ta-class battleships, three into each of the Wo's, four into each Ru... one at each of the Cruiser escorts, five, no Frigg it, SIX into the big lady, bunch into some other big looking ships I don't know the name of, and there!" Man, I was going to be feeling pretty empty after this, wasn't I? Well, it was time to get this carnival started!

"Why a carnival?" My Captain asked, from her tone dreading the answer.

"Because I look like a freakin' clown in these oversized overalls." Now where was I? Oh, yes.

"FIRE ZE MISSILES!"

Lao startled slightly at the rapid stream of missiles that suddenly began streaking out from the water. "Something tells me the enemy Carriers are about to have a bad day!" Chitose nodded in agreement before again focusing on the task at hand.

With Kitty Hawk:

They were making steady progress, the Naval Mines had been mostly swept through. With only a few pings ahead for the Destroyers to clear, they'd be able to continue with a reasonable amount of safety quite shortly. The enemy's human Jet fighters had been steadily losing ground against her phantoms, aside from that disastrous opening maneuver with the ground-based AA she'd only lost one more fighter to the enemies five, her phantoms really had a hard time getting the far more slippery MIG 21's in their sights, nonetheless, it would only be a matter of time.

Kitty Hawk stiffened suddenly as her recon craft reported in. "Something wrong?" The Ta next to her, Ta-01, asked worriedly, hoping there wasn't anything she'd accidentally done to offend the Risen Carrier. She was thrown for a loop when the Hime-Carrier banked sharply to the right away from her, gaze snapping Northwards as in the distance her phantoms could be seen attempting to peel off from their dogfight with the human fighters.

"I'm having my pilots disengage from the MIG's. We have multiple missile launches detected upriver, Kanmusu missiles, moving to intercept! Everyone take evasive action!" Kitty Hawk practically screamed the last part through the radio, as confused surface ships around her tried to figure out what exactly they were supposed to be evading.

F-4's streaked overhead as they moved to shoot down the contacts, but many had to swiftly break off as the MIG's followed them, spitting lead out of their in-built nose cannons. Even as small and fast as they were, they couldn't ignore the human craft completely without giving their counterparts a golden opportunity to take them out. A good portion of the Abyssal jets swung around to keep the humans off the rest of the interceptor's backs. Seven of the incoming missiles were detonated by the F-4's harmlessly, falling into the river where the leftover rocket fuel coated the water in a blanket of fire. Kitty Hawk opened up with her twin phalanxes, the two miniguns spooling up with a loud whirr before spitting out a fusillade of fire towards the incoming projectiles, the rest of the Abyssal forces only now beginning to bring their AA guns to bear.

Kitty Hawk personally destroyed three more of the incoming missiles before they reached them, most that landed among their formation missed their target to some degree, a few splooshing into the water some distance behind them. A fair amount landed close enough to rattle the ships next to the impact and cause varying levels of mild damage, including setting several vessels alight. Over fifteen missiles, however, hit directly, not including the cluster that swept overhead to plow into the stationary Ru's downriver.

The results were devastating.

Two struck Ta-02 mid-ship, the first plowing right between her breasts, stripping the hull from her frame and exposing her citadel armor casing to the world. Before the second cracked into her navel, effectively blowing her in half and leaving her fully conscious as she quickly slipped beneath the waves. Ta-03 took one to her bridge, with expected results. The headless Fast Battleship belly-flopped onto the water like a puppet with its strings cut. Ta-01 narrowly avoided the same fate, throwing herself to the side as three missiles detonated next to where she'd been standing. This left the woman covered with embedded shrapnel and rolling about in a panic to put out the flames that now coated her from the excess rocket fuel that the rain and river-water failed to smother.

Of the Cruisers that were also hit, few survived, though the single Re-class Aviation Battleship got off relatively lightly, 'merely' having her aft-hanger caved in, presumably mulching any aircraft she'd not bothered to launch.

Of the six launched at Kitty Hawk, four were shot down, and the fifth missed, as the woman had simply moved out of the way. One of the missiles, perhaps aimed poorly, or perhaps particularly well, stopped mere feet from detonating in her face.

One of her escorts, Maddox, had jumped up and caught it.

The Destroyer examined the missile briefly, thruster still spewing flames, before pointing its nose away and letting go. It shot off again briefly, before smashing into an already sinking Cruiser's bridge, putting the poor girl out of her misery.

"Thank you hon, that would have been unpleasant." The Destroyer simply nodded before replying, voice barely heard over the screaming of the heavily damaged.

"Those looked like they were TLAM-C's, surprised they were that close to the mark on a moving target." That was surprising, New Jersey had those back in the day, didn't she? Best to let her know later on... Regardless, they still had a job to do.

"Put that Battlewagon's fires out for me would you? We have an advance to commit to and I'd rather Jersey have someone other than me to have a hissy-fit at if this goes more poorly than it already has." She raised the Carrier-trio she'd spoken with earlier today. "CV-01 Actual, do you read?" Static, before;

"H̷͍̎͝e̷͎͈̽l̶͕̾͘l̷̫͋o̶̰̾̀?̸͉̫̈̓ He̷͎͈̽l̶͕̾͘l̷̫͋o?̸͉̫̈̓ is this Hawk-Ḣ̶̜̱ì̴̮m̸̈e̵? We need to get out of here, we were all just hit by some kind of missiles, Wo-02 is sunk and we need to get 03's fires put out before they spread! I took a hit to my elevator, none of us can get our planes back safely! I would hate to ask anything of you Battlecat-Sama, but if you have any capacity-?

"I can take some of your planes onboard for you temporarily, yes, just be mindful that if the pilots poke around where they aren't wanted, you won't be getting them back. The rest will have to make do with whatever field they can find to land in once they are finished their missions." The standard Carrier thanked Kitty Hawk profusely before the connection was lost in static once more. The Carrier sighed as Ta-01, having had the fire beaten off of her by Hawk's escorts, spoke up haltingly, looking at the ruined wrecks of her sister-ships.

"W-What, what do we do now?

"We advance"

"But what about the rest of the mines?" The Carrier looked down her nose at the disheveled Fast Battleship.

"Would you rather the Destroyers take a few piddly human-made Naval Mines to the prow, or give the enemy time to prepare another barrage of that?" She pointed at the damaged fleet for emphasis. The Ta-class looked down for a moment, before coming onto the main fleet's channel to dispense orders.

"DesDiv-11, toss your munitions and start steaming to the other side of that mine-field. Fleet, stay inside DesDiv-11's wake, they'll trail-blaze through the minefield for the rest of us." The Ta continued as the fleet reorganized itself; "Ri-07, Tsu-04, you have damage to your gun mounts, make yourselves useful and get the more damaged ships underway to Saigon, whether they will be able to be saved or scrapped, that's for New Jersey to decide. The two named ships nodded, before they began shepherding the more heavily damaged ships back downriver. "Alright, let's go! flanking speed!"

There was no time to waste, they couldn't survive another barrage like that. The City had to fall now.