"Saturday mornings…" Trinitite quoted, her rangefinders burning into the approaching store. It was technically morning, she supposed, although the sun had been up for several hours now. Her plan had been to get up at 0500, collect her miniature fleet, and enjoy the hour-and-a-half walk there, but when she'd shared her idea with Alex her fleetmate pointed out that the store only opened at 11:30.
Her plan sunk, The Abyssal had woken up without any idea of what to do. She'd lingered in the kitchen, helping Paloma make breakfast. The abyssal sat with the family, her thoughts focused more on her upcoming game than any conversation. Her fleet was going to sail into battle! The thought had consumed her, the abyssal unable to sit still as she alternated between anticipation and dwelling on the injustice of the store's employees calling an 11:30 opening time 'morning!'
Trinitite saw Alex off to work, her fleetmate wishing her luck, then turned down an offer for transport from Paloma and started walking.
The store shouldn't be open yet, but that was fine. Trinitite's pace slowed, the Abyssal taking her time to close the last yards to the entrance, before drifting to a stop near the door and leaning against the wall. She could wait twenty more minutes.
She spent the time strategizing. What kind of fleets was she likely to come up against? The Wo-class had only played one game of 40k last night, one that she hardly remembered, instead spending the majority of her time on 'reconnaissance.' Obviously she could expect the humans who could afford 40k would have no problem buying multiple Valkyries of Ran starter sets, let alone any of the smaller single-ship packages to supplement their fleets, but she was fairly sure her research had given her an idea of what her fleet would be up against today.
Besides her abyssal carrier group, there were sets dedicated to abyssal Ru-class battleships and a 'wolfpack' of submarines. Her fleet could outrun both, and had the range advantage with bombers. If they sold Ta-class fast battleships or Ra-class battlecruisers, she might be in trouble, but she hadn't found any of those last night. Trinitite also noted, with some amusement, that the Re-class was also missing. If one of those stuck-up abominations learned that they weren't worth including in the game, then hopefully they'd be suitably insulted.
Her next potential opponent, and probably the most likely, were the American shipgirl fleets. It was what Alex had bought, after all, and Trinitite had to assume that most Americans would find their Navy the most interesting. Also unfortunately, those fleets seemed the most well-rounded. She'd just have to make up a strategy when she met them. There were two exceptions: 'The Standard Pack,' which seemed to consist entirely of battleships, and the 'Taffy 3 Pack,' which seemed to be only escort destroyers and carriers. The former pack didn't seem particularly threatening, but the latter might be a problem for her, depending on their equipment. If they were all AA pickets, then all she'd have to really fight the swarm would be her He-class light cruiser and her understrength destroyer screen.
The other countries' fleets seemed a little more focused. There was the 'Kido Butai Starter Pack,' which had the aircraft carrier the Wo-class found oddly familiar, as well as the 'Force Z Starter Pack,' which contained a fast battleship and a battlecruiser.
That one concerned her. Trinitite thought of herself and her sisters as fast, but if either of those ships were faster her fleet might only be able to get one strike off before getting chased down in the confines of the tabletop and sunk.
The most peculiar box had been decorated with two ensigns: A black, red, and yellow stripe, and eight red stripes meeting in the center of a blue background. The title, 'Task Force Schlau,' was equally unhelpful, and the artwork showed a face, but she hadn't been able to decipher its contents until she flipped the box over and read the list of warships. In it, there was a shipgirl aircraft carrier (…hang on, those were those mysterious planes that had attacked her convoy months ago!), and dark, imposing form of a modern, steel-hulled submarine. The sight had sent a primal chill down her keel. Steel-hulled submarines were a nightmare to fight, but she'd never actually seen how they looked on the surface until she goten access to the internet.
The dull, non-metallic hull plating. The blunted bow, terminating in a round head like a torpedo instead of in a point like any real ship would. The lack of clearly visible weapons, Trinitite's knowledge of the threat they posed setting her even more on edge.
Deep, submarines were creepy enough already!
That brought her to another problem: She didn't know how to gauge the Steel-hull fleets at all. Jellyfish hadn't had any knowledge of their capabilities, scuttlebutt gathered from abyssals of other fleets was wildly inconsistent, and her only encounters with them had been too chaotic and violent to gather any data. Looking at the Valkyries sets of human fleets only conjured up more questions. What made a supercarrier different from a regular carrier? Why were missile destroyers cruiser-sized? Which one of these hull types had managed to blindside her at Bikini?
"Hello? Ma'am?" a voice from behind her interrupted the Wo Class's thoughts. She turned, locking rangefinders with an employee she didn't recognize. "You here for Valkyries of Ran?"
"Yeah."
The employee was leaning out of the doorway, only his head uncovered by glass as his own rangefinders quickly inspected Trinitite's hull. He visibly swallowed, gathering strength for something, but-
"Just- just head on in, then. We still won't be open for a few minutes, but…"
The door swung open, the human stepping back to allow the Wo-class in. Trinitite checked her chronometer, realizing she was being allowed inside the fleet's territory a full eleven minutes early. Wouldn't the employee get in trouble for violating their standing orders like that?
The Wo-class mentally shrugged, stepping through the opened hatch. It would be his problem, not hers. Nobody bothered her as she walked to the back of the store, claiming one of the half-dozen empty tables with the 'tackle box' Alex had loaned her. Her fingers quickly slid under the latch, popping the container open to reveal Trinitite's little task force. As she waited for a challenger, she started sliding her ships out of their protective compartments, arraying them on the table in front of her.
First, there were her two I-class destroyers, the Mahan-based CFS Robbins and the Sims-based CFS Groves. In reality, she had been a Benham-type, but the set Trinitite had bought hadn't come with them. Neither destroyer had seen the battle of Bikini, Robbins succumbing to a human missile in the South China Sea while Groves had placed herself between Trinititie and an incoming spread of torpedoes. That the destroyer had never returned to the fleet, meaning the Wo-class had never been able to properly thank her. Hopefully, the I-class was doing well in whatever fleet The Abyss had sent her to, if she came back at all. Many princesses didn't have much respect for the vital escorts and picket forces…
CFS Ames, the He-class cruiser, entered the table next, Trinitite slotting her miniature into the cardboard Agano-shaped base that had come with her. She wasn't really happy with the statistics the game had given her. Trinitite was still working on reading the ship's cards, but the Agano-type He's seemed like they had pitiful AA. Deep, the Essex-type Wos had better anti-aircraft capabilities! Ames's impressive battery of 5"/38s, along with the advanced radar and fire control that operated them, had been invaluable in blunting air attacks. Representing them so poorly felt like an insult, and Trinitite had had half the mind to represent her as a Cleveland-class instead. Still, Ames had been based on the Agano-class, so an Agano-class she would stay.
Finally, the capital ships joined the fleet. Hypocenter, her hands idly resting on her cane as she thoughtfully surveyed everything before her. Firestorm next, her sister directing her cane towards some invisible antagonist. Firestorm was set on the set's Lexington Base, both because it came with Firestorm's battery of 8" guns and because the set had only come with one essex base.
She probably wouldn't have minded being compared to Mother like that anyways.
Trinitite technically also had a Ha-class destroyer, and had painted it to avoid suspicion, but the Crossroads Fleet hadn't had any of those, so the miniature had stayed in the tackle box. It stripped her screen even barer, but she would take that sacrifice.
"You play Abyssals?"
Trinitite looked up at the familiar voice, spotting Dustin as he strode into the back of the store. The 'commissar costume' he'd been wearing last night for reasons the Wo-class had been afraid to inquire on was gone, the uniform replaced with a plain t-shirt and jeans. The massive boxes that carried his guard armies were also missing, Alex's friend carrying a humble tackle box roughly the size of Trinitite's own.
"Yeah." She answered, hoping the practiced explanation would hit. "I get to control them now!"
"Makes sense." He nodded, sitting across from the Wo-class. "Also means you don't mind seeing them sunk, right?"
"Er- Yeah…" She forced, looking down at her fleet. She still had lost the majority of her battles in 40k, and had hoped that a new system would put her on more even terms, but it was clear Dustin had put a lot of his time into tabletop wargames. Yes, she had known that losses would happen, but if Trinitite wasn't careful there was a good chance she would just be getting to see her family die, again.
That just meant she'd have to play better, then. It wasn't like Dustin had any actual experience in naval combat.
"Alright," He said, sizing up Trinitite's fleet. "What point value?"
"Uh," Trinitite glanced down at her fleet, mentally checking her logs. "Two-thousand, three-hundred and twenty."
"Odd number…" He noted, glasses reflecting the store's lighting as he nodded. "...but I can match it."
The box opened with a pop, and the human removed a single steel hull and placed it on his side of the table.
Trinitite stared at the miniature ship for a moment, waiting for something else to join it, but Dustin remained still, leaning back in his chair as he smugly watched for the abyssal's reaction.
"...what is it?" She finally asked. This… had been what she had worried about. The abyssal was an expert in recognizing any ship girl's class, niche, and potential strengths and weaknesses at a glance, but these steel hulls were all just swollen superstructures, tall, dense masts, and tiny guns to her.
"This, my friend, is Marshal Shaposhnikov. She's a Udaloy-class destroyer of the Russian Navy based out of Vladivostok. Her sixteen VLS cells, filled with Kalibr cruise missiles, along with eight Kh-35 Kyack anti-ship missiles, have claimed three different abyssal ships over the course of this war."
"Impressive." Trinitite commented, wondering how one confirmed kills made with those low-flying, extremely long-ranged missiles. "It's not 2000 points, though." She guessed.
"Ah, it's not." Dustin admitted. "But you see, Russia's national bonus allows me to have two off-table airfields, instead of one!" Triumphantly, he placed two pieces of cardboard onto the table, each depicting large, expansive runs of tarmac and massive hangers. Since they hadn't applied to abyssals (installations being conspicuously absent in Valkyries), Trinitite had only skimmed over the rules for those, and didn't remember them very well here. "That means I can get bombers in the air twice as quickly as anyone else can!"
Trinitite sighed, pressure building in her boilers as she watched the human place an cloud-grey, angular bomber on one of the two airfields, then another. Then another.
Perhaps Ames should have been a Cleveland-class after all. The Crossroads Fleet was going to need all the anti-aircraft they could get. This battle was looking a lot more familiar then she'd hoped for.
"Alright, that should add up to about two thousand, three hundred." He commented,
"How'd you get so many of those…" She asked, trailing off as she motioned towards the armada of bombers.
"Backfires?" He asked, giving a name to Trinitite's main opponent. "Easy. The set came with the model for one Tu-22, and I printed out nine more."
"Nine?" She echoed, looking back at the two airfields.
Not counting the more conventional prop-driven aircraft, there were only five… Trinitite assumed one piece represented a squadron of bombers like it did for her aircraft, which made their numbers even more ridiculous. How was she supposed to kill all of those, especially if they could retreat off the table?
"Yeah, they only get one attack, so if I'm going to be using these, I gotta use all of them."
"Oh, they can only attack once?" That suddenly seemed a lot more reasonable. Her fleet just had to weather one volley, then they could finish the destroyer at their leisure.
"Yeah." Dustin nodded. "They're long range bombers, after all. Based in Siberia."
"Ah." She replied, feeling better. She had dealt with human missiles before. The trick was spotting the threat, which wouldn't be a problem on the tabletop, and good use of smoke to dupe them away from the majority of the fleet. The sheer volume would be an issue- she wasn't quite sure what their payload was, but it had to be impressive- but she only needed to survive that one strike. "Not that much of a problem, then."
"We'll see…" He dissented, making an attempt at sounding ominous. "What's the weather?"
Trinitite sighed, fishing the rulebook from the tackle box and flipping through it. Before she'd seen her opponent, she'd decided on using the 'choppy sea' condition to slow down any pursuing destroyers, but that clearly wouldn't help here.
Let's see… the 'unpredictable winds' condition would reduce the accuracy of aerial attacks, including her own, but it might also reduce the amount of missiles she had to worry about. Still, the majority of her points were in her carriers, and reducing the ability of her sisters to contribute to the battle seemed fairly self-defeating. 'Intermittent squalls?' That would basically give her free intermittent smoke, but reading the ability further made it seem like it was designed to influence surface combat instead of the aerial attack she expected.
Her rangefinders settled on another condition, and a battle plan started to form in her mind.
"That's a scout aircraft, right?" The Wo-class asked, pointing towards the single prop-driven aircraft on the human's airfields.
"The Bear?" Dustin clarified, "Yeah."
"You only have one?" The Abyssal asked.
"It represents four aircraft, but yes…" The human replied, the confidence starting to flee from his voice. Excellent.
"I'm choosing 'EM cloud layer.'" Trinitite announced. "In order to make a direct attack or spot for an attack, an aircraft cannot have more than half of its maximum energy."
That energy- a stat the manual claimed represented a combination of a plane's speed and altitude, was the key here. She hadn't looked at the unit cards for those aircraft, but it was a safe bet that they had much higher maximum potential energy then her much less advanced aircraft. If that Bear had to dip below the clouds to report the location of her fleet to all those Backfires, then Trinitite's sisters had a chance of meeting it with interceptors when dropped down to take a look.
"Direct attack…" Dustin muttered. "...that doesn't include-"
"No, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes aren't affected," Trinitite provided, rereading the condition's rules, "but you'll still have to spot my fleet before you can attack."
"Okay…" The human accepted, reconsidering the table as he rubbed his chin. "I guess we roll, then."
"Sure." She replied, checking the rest of the store as two dice tumbled in her hand. While last night, four of the six tables had games on them, right now it looked like they were the only two people playing. This game wasn't as popular, then, or perhaps the majority of humans were also put off by the store's insultingly late opening time.
The abyssal won initiative. Her fleet didn't really need to go anywhere, but she wasn't going to be caught drifting when the missiles rolled in, so as one her fleet started moving two inches along her side of the table, then placed a momentum marker another two inches in front of the lead destroyer. She was going to need a lot more of those markers when she split her fleet up for evasive maneuvers, but for now they could stay in formation, accelerating at the speed of the two carriers at the rear.
Before ending her turn, Trinitite placed a squadron of corsairs in front of Hypocenter and a unit of hellcats in front of Firestorm. None of the Wo sisters carried those fighters, but like many things in the crossroads fleet, bearcat fighters hadn't come with the box. She knew the corsair and hellcat well enough to know they didn't behave like her fighters, the heavier aircraft slower to accelerate and climb but better at retaining energy. For that reason she'd been tempted to give her sisters zeroes instead, as their card stats seemed like they'd be more representative, but like her bearcats these fighters could carry Tiny Tims. The anti-ship rockets had been a nasty surprise to more than one trailing submarine, and she hadn't wanted to sacrifice that capability.
Dustin's 'destroyer,' being the only unit in his fleet that would stay on the table, remained well away from her fleet, sailing towards the opposite corner from the crossroads fleet. She could imagine the deep hum of the bear's engines as the massive reconnaissance aircraft entered the battlefield, starting with its maximum energy while the fighters Trinitite had launched to stop it lifted off the deck with none. That was fine, though. Dustin could only get two aircraft onto the board at once, and thanks to the weather the scout would have to sacrifice some of its energy to spot her fleet in the first place, so she still had some chance at interception.
Hypocenter's corsairs edged in front of Firestorm's hellcats as they dashed towards the marshaling airstrike, the abyssal placing an energy token on each. Another squadron of corsairs and hellcats rose from the decks of Trinitite's sisters, but the Abyssal realized they would be too late to help anything. She should have prepared helldivers and gone after the oversized destroyer.
Not that it really mattered. By the time Dustin got all of his bombers off their airfields, Hypocenter and Firestorm would be empty carriers anyways. Speaking of which…
"How does this 3D printing work?" She asked, watching the human move another two backfires onto the table. She leaned over her fleet, trying to get a better look at the distant aircraft to determine the difference.
"You feed a machine a spool of plastic, and the computer on the machine melts the spool enough to layer it into whatever shape you want." He explained, shifting his destroyer into a lazy turn. "Your turn."
"You didn't move your bear." Trinitite objected.
"It's circling." Dustin replied. The abyssal didn't want to go into the rulebook to see if that was a thing or not, and did her own turn. Her fleet was now moving at a respectable pace, giving Trinitite a chance of evasion when the missile strike finally came.
Finally, with all his bombers off the airfield, Dustin's scout aircraft angled into a dive, expending an energy to double its move and set a course ahead of Trinitite's fleet and away from the approaching corsairs. In response, the four fighter squadrons shifted to intercept, forming a flying line of defense between the scouting aircraft.
"Those clouds work both ways." The human groused. "There's no way the abyssals would know to intercept the incoming bear."
"There's no way your forces would know where we were in here in the first place." The Wo-class replied. "If you're being realistic, this battle wouldn't happen."
The human scoffed, but didn't reply, the need for the bear to expend more energy forcing it to double its speed as it dove towards the imaginary cloud layer. At the same time, Dustin's destroyer turned towards the abyssal fleet.
"Now, Marshal Shaposhnikov is going to launch his helicopter!" He said, triumphantly placing another piece on the table. It was only a moment, however, before that triumph suddenly dulled. "Helicopters aren't affected by this weather condition, right?"
The abyssal checked the rulebook again.
"They aren't."
"Great…" He chuckled, his voice low.
She immediately knew what he was planning. A two-pronged missile attack from the bombers and the destroyer, missiles screaming in at perpendicular angles so her ships had to choose a threat to expose their vulnerable broadside to. Thankfully, her bomber squadrons were in the air now, and she directed them towards the approaching target. The helicopter should be easy prey, even for her helldivers, and if three squadrons of bombers couldn't eliminate one destroyer, then it was clearly misnamed. The crossroads fleet started turning towards the backfires, Ames splitting away from the formation to interpose herself between the Wos and the human destroyer.
Dustin's bear was now in a bit of trouble. It still needed to bleed off two energy to spot Trinitite's fleet, and if it adjusted its course to intercept, it would fly well into the range of one of Trinitite's fighters. The squadron of hellcats only had three energy, which wasn't enough to engage the bear's seven, but in a turn the difference would have shrunk enough for Trinitite to make an intercept. Dustin chose to risk it anyways, cutting over the abyssal squadron in a beeline directly for the crossroads fleet. The bear still wasn't low enough to spot the fleet, but next turn it certainly would be. Firestorm's second squadron of hellcats were the only fighters close enough to stop them, and they would only have one chance.
They emerged from the clouds, closing on the tails of the lumbering, silver-winged aircraft. Trinitite scooped up ten dice, borrowing some from her human opponent.
"Alright, I hit on a three." The Wo-class announced, the arsenal of die forming a satisfying rattle as she shifted in her hand.
"Er- four, actually." The human corrected, removing another energy token that had been resting next to the bear's base. "They're doing evasive maneuvers."
How did something that big 'evade' a fighter? Trinitite shook her head. Maybe those massive wings were made of some human supermaterial that kept them from snapping under the g-load.
"Okay, I hit on a four." She corrected, hiding the tension that was building in her keel. If she could pull this off, the game was as good as won. The dice cascaded onto the table, tumbling away from the fleet as Trinitite rolled for Firestorm's fighters. Her rangefinders eagerly interrogated the dice faces, counting up the scout plane's doom… then her hope died.
It was terrible! There were plenty of ones and threes, but only two… no, three rolls high enough to kill an aircraft! Dread permeating through every pump and pipe in her hull, she looked up at her human opponent… to find that he'd rolled four dice for the aircraft's gunners.
The human's eyes were wide, a smile spreading across his face as he proclaimed "One of them survived!"
One had. Their tail guns had claimed one of Trinitite's hellcats, but the real tragedy was that the evasive maneuver had put the aircraft below the clouds, both within spotting range of the crossroads fleet and outside their anti-aircraft guns. All the last bear's crew needed to do was radio the fleet's position through… the clouds...
"Wait!" The Wo-class pleaded. "These clouds block radar, right? Why don't they block the bear's radio reports as well?"
"Is that in the manual?" Dustin asked, the smirk clear on his face.
Trinitite dove for the manual that had come with her fleet, the pages rustling as she jumped to the relevant ruleset.
"...no."
"It's no problem, then." Dustin replied, sarcasm dripping from his reassurance.
Trinitite's turn wasn't over. Her destroyers started laying a smoke screen, allowing Firestorm and Hypocenter to slip into the protective blankets of haze before the storm approached. Ames, unfortunately, was too far away to get to safety, and for some reason couldn't lay a smoke screen of her own. Perhaps she could dodge the incoming swarm of missiles, instead?
Normally, she'd also have her helldivers laying smoke, creating radar-opaque curtains for human missiles to waste themselves against, but that was another vital ability that Valkyries of Ran just didn't include. Honestly, if she could complain about anything to its creators, it would be their ignorance to the massive utility granted by a single helldiver!
Speaking of her helldivers, the first two groups had arrived at the opposing destroyer. Firestorm's squadron effortlessly cut down the helecopter, Trinitite imagining the aircraft disintegrating under the bomber's twin 20mm cannons as it tumbled into the sea. Meanwhile, Hypocenter's air group focused on the destroyer, where they encountered a problem.
In the game's ruleset, dive bombers could trade energy for an enhanced chance to hit, but the cloud cover the abyssal had chosen for the game limited how much she'd be able to use. The bombers were restricted to using three energy for their dive, all of which were completely counterbalanced by the destroyer's 'CIWS' system. Thus, she would have to roll a six on her seven attacks (three of Hypocenter's bombers had been destroyed by the anti-aircraft fire). Trinitite was tempted to roll in pairs, like how the bombers would actually operate, but for the sake of time she cast all seven die at once.
"Two hits." She reported, looking at her roll. "What's Marshal's armor?"
"None." Dustin grimaced. "What's the bomb's power?"
"Five." She read off, and Dustin exhaled as if struck. With his own manual turned to a damage table, he rolled a much larger, multi-sided dice, then read the result.
"Loss of propulsion." He reported, then rolled again for the other hit. Then, without saying a word, he scooped the die up and rolled it with a second, "Oof, you cooked off his missiles. That's two fires, half of his health, and no more missiles."
"That's a relief." Trinitite replied. Assuming she didn't sink on her own, and ignoring the anemic gun on her prow, the missile destroyer was now completely helpless. If the crossroads fleet could weather the backfire raid, then their attempted tormenter would be easy prey.
"...Welp." The human announced. "I guess it's time for the 2nd Missile-Carrying Aviation Squadron to save the day!" At his proclamation, Dustin swept his hand over the five bombers. "Each one of those pieces represents four backfires. Each one of those can carry two K-H-twenty-two anti-ship missiles."
The abyssal quickly did the math in her head. She didn't think she'd ever fought more than a dozen incoming missiles at once, and then she'd faced them with a much larger fleet!
"Do you even have forty dice?" She asked.
"Of course I do!" Dustin boasted, crouching to rummage in the bag he'd brought. "I even brought a special bucket to roll them with." The 'bucket' was smaller than Trinitite had thought, but the human still managed to slam it onto the table with a satisfying thunk. "Besides, you've got five ships. I'll only have to roll eight per."
His hand slammed into the table, leaving a marker along the course of Trinitite's fleet.
"If you can get twelve inches away from that marker in two turns, then your little abominations are safe."
"Twelve inches?" She echoed. Even her destroyers, even Ames, who was fairly well separated from the fleet, couldn't escape that! "That's the radius? Not the diameter?"
"You heard right." He confirmed, boasting a smile that was far too confident for someone talking to an abyssal aircraft carrier. "See what you can do."
She did what she could. Two squadrons of corsairs and a squadron of hellcats interposed themselves between the fleet and the oncoming missiles, managing to down four of the forty incoming warheads with lucky rolls.
"That's bullshit." The human had complained. "Those things are supersonic! How's a World War 2 airplane going to intercept one?"
"I… don't know." She'd admitted. It wasn't something her sisters or herself had managed to do before. "I'll take it, though."
Her next advantage came with the smoke. In the ruleset, the concealment forced her opponent to reroll any hits they got, and since it was a human-made guided weapon up against shipgirls, he was already working against a significant accuracy penalty. Still, that knowledge gave her little comfort as she visualized the overwhelming wall of death headed for her fleetmates.
Groves faced the onslaught first. Her dual-purpose guns failed to down any of the oncoming missiles, and while the smoke forced Dustin to reroll three hits, two sixes marked the end of the poor I-class.
"These aren't your everyday harpoons, either." Dustin had gloated as Trinitite shuffled over to the destroyer damage table. "These are capital killers. Ten power."
Unlike in 40k or aerial combat, the attacker's rolls didn't dictate what attacks were killing blows or merely wounds. Instead, Trinitite was forced to pick up a twenty-sided die, add the defending ship's armor value to the roll (nothing, in this case), and then subtract the attack's power, combining all the numbers to figure out what kind of catastrophe unfolded on her defending ship by a table. For example, according to the roll she made for the first missile strike, Groves' keel was snapped by the ferocity of the blast, sinking the destroyer almost instantly.
At least it was painless. As the carrier mournfully removed the I-class from the tabletop, the human continued.
"These babies are the reason why carriers are basically obsolete."
Trinitite's dread was suddenly interrupted by a surge of indignation. What? Nothing, besides maybe The Fire, rendered carriers obsolete! If they were, then why did the US Navy keep building them?
This human wasn't in The Navy! What did he know about warships? Trinitite was no longer just fighting for the plastic figures on the table. No, the pride of carriers as a whole was on the line here! The Wo-class didn't say a thing in reply, afraid that she might break her disguise in rebutting the human. Still, she skipped over the rest of the fleet and rolled for Hypocenter's anti-aircraft guns next, the dice spilling onto the table with a grim determination.
To her credit, Hypocenter shot down two of the eight incoming missiles. Of the six remaining, three ran true, but the smoke forced Dustin to reroll for them. Two of the would-be hits were duped by the smoke, harmlessly missing the carrier, but like the claw of some enraged princess the last missile lanced into Trinitite's sister. Searching the aircraft carrier damage table, Trinitite rolled. Even with the massive warhead biasing her roll, there were still a lot of potential survivable outcomes… but she got none of them.
"Magazine detonation." She numbly reported, picking the die up and rolling it two more times. When she was done, Hypocenter was dead in the water, covered from stem-to-stern in fire, and had lost pretty much every system she could have used. If she rolled exceptionally well on damage control in the next couple of rounds, Trinitite might be able to save her sister, but she wasn't holding out hope. Her fate was marginally better than it had been at Bikini, but it looked like it would ultimately end in the same place.
Despite lacking the dual-purpose guns to complement her anti-aircraft armament, Firestorm fared surprisingly better. A single hit left a gaping crater in her deck, and if she'd still had aircraft in her hangar there would have been a disaster, but compared to her sister she'd been basically unscathed.
The same couldn't be said for Ames. The unfortunate He-class was too far from the rest of the fleet to get the benefit of smoke, and her pathetic anti-aircraft armament did nothing to deter the hail of missiles heading towards her. To add insult to injury, one of the five hits detonated the torpedoes she never possessed, erasing the light cruiser in a ball of fire. Ames was definitely not going to be represented by an Agano-class next battle.
Ironically, Rogers was the only ship that emerged from the missile storm completely unharmed. The I-class flubbed all of her anti-aircraft rolls, but every missile the humans launched at her completely missed their target.
The Crossroads fleet… had survived.
As Trinitite relaxed, Dustin sighed.
"Well, shit."
"So," The abyssal looked up, "obsolete?"
"These are abyssals." He waved at the crossroads fleet dismissively. "That's different. Even then, they aren't bombing cities and depopulating islands in this state."
"How do you know they were doing that?" Trinitite replied, indignant.
"They would eventually." He shrugged, then held a hand out. "I guess you win, though. Good game?"
Trinitite re-surveyed her fleet. She looked at Hypocenter, all but sunk as fire burned uncontrolled across her deck. At Firestorm, battered but not beaten, and at the conspicuous absence of Ames and Groves. Her rangefinders flicked over the offending human destroyer, helpless against Firestorm's eight-inch guns.
"No." She asserted. "I want to finish this."
It was about time her sister finally got to use those, after all.
"Jesus. That's what I get for asking for mercy from The Commissar."
Bryant smirked at the comment, dutifully keeping his eyes on the inventory sheet. The customers certainly sounded like they were having fun. The turnout for the Valkyries of Ran timeslot had been pretty poor, but that was to be expected. It was a new game, and as far as he knew they were the first games store in the valley who had picked it up.
It didn't seem half bad, though. When he had found time, he'd wandered over to the game the two were playing, watching them bicker over rules and figure out the system together. It looked like it needed a lot of polish, but the game must have been interesting enough: Neither of the opponents had sat down since it had started.
Maybe he'd pick it up when they came out with a second edition.
"Don't turn around…" He mumbled, fishing his phone out of his pocket and opening the camera. From there, he flicked to the last image he'd taken: A wide shot of the table where the naval battle had played out. He'd made sure that the imposing group of abyssals got center stage of the photo, but also ensured that the camera angled to get a look at both of the opposing 'admirals.' If the boss approved of it, the image would be going up on Facebook soon, hopefully driving up a bit more support- and sales- for the new game.
His eyes lingered a bit on the abyssal player, the woman's sweater and jeans not doing nearly enough to hide the curves hidden under the thick fabric. Money was tight for everybody these days, but a chance to battle a looker like 'The Commissar' might loosen their purse strings…
Ayy, I'm back! This chapter's a bit of a chonker, but I had a lot of fun writing it. Hopefully you enjoyed it, too!
Dustin's a bit of an interesting challenge to write, as writing a military enthusiast who's well on the Dunning–Kruger Curve without trying to poke too much fun at him or his opinions is an interesting challenge. Hopefully he made a fun antagonist this chapter, innocently rubbing Trinitite the wrong way now that he wasn't talking about his precious imperial guard and instead speaking in the Aircraft Carrier's realm of expertise.
Besides that, I'm a bit curious as to your opinion on the writing on the game itself. I'll be writing a few more 'fight scenes' via Valkyries of Ran in the future, but probably not to the level of detail here. How much detail that is probably depends of whatever feedback y'all give. Especially constructive negative criticism. While I love getting comments of all types (except ones too focused on current politics, which I don't think we've had in a long time), those that point out problems they see in the fic are some of the most valuable, in my opinion. I may or may not make any changes based on that feedback, but I'm still glad to get it and will consider it, even as I take some more... risky decisions on the direction of the story and worldbuilding in the future.