Ch. 43: Ballad of Athena Part One

A.N.:

Well, college is back :(

I apologize for the confusion with this chapter. I posted it twice because from my end, it looks like it is occasionally being removed from the archive and traffic stats even though I can see it in my "manage stories" tab.

Also, I am now running a quick vote for the next chapter. I want to save one of the Iowa-class battleships. How, I will keep a secret until then. However, if there is a preference for which one or if they should be saved at all, I want to hear the readers' voice...so to speak. Either leave a review with the name of the ship or send a private message to my inbox.

I'm being serious. Even if just one person votes, he or she will get the say in which one "lives" or if they all "die".

This is not a "choose your adventure" type deal. It is simply for sentimentality purposes. In the long run, it will not change the story.

Choices:

Iowa- lead ship of class

New Jersey- my personal favorite and the most decorated battleship in US Naval History

Missouri- the Japanese surrendered on this one and she was in the movie "Battleship"

Wisconsin- numerically, the last battleship built by the U.S.

I wanted to give Athena some spotlight because she deserves it. Plus, I wanted to give a little background on how exactly she was resurrected. The history is slightly off because I wanted to be dramatic.

Expect the next chapter to be epic.

Read and review if you want.

Also, vote :)

The air was changing. Summer's grip on the city was rapidly faltering under the ever-strengthening fall weather. Though there was justified reason to welcome the new weather, I felt a sense of dread as the rapidly approaching storm clouds grew ever darker. The approaching nightmare, having been conquered mere months prior, was once again advancing towards me.

"Michael, are you narrating your life again?"

I turned to gaze adoringly at my materialized raven-haired companion, whose company I ordinarily welcomed with open arms, who too seemed troubled by the coming conflict and was, subsequently, a complete morale crusher. The most grueling conflict yet seen had not even begun, and, already, the resolve of the allies was disintegrating.

"You watched that documentary on battleships again, didn't you?"

The goddess, normally stubborn and filled with the desire to fight, had become detrimental to my attempts to prepare for the coming storm. Alma sighed and then dissolved her dress, revealing her bare form. Though my young body's hormone-driven urges were not as strong as most adolescents due to my starved diet, I nearly instantly forgot about the conflict that had been troubling me moment prior.

She smiled before she remarked, "That's better."

I felt my cheeks getting warm and realized that I was blushing. Rushing across my room from where I had been looking out my window at the few visible stars in the night sky, I moved towards her. As I neared her, she raised her arms out and when I got to her, we wrapped our arms around each other. After kissing each other deeply for nearly a minute, we parted. When we did, she rematerialized her dress but continued to hold my hands down in front of her.

She frowned before she remarked, "I'm sorry that you have to go back to school. I enjoyed playing with you this summer. It was the first time that I have been able to play with someone like that."

Looking into her eyes, I replied, "It was my first time too." I noticed the quick, amused look in her eyes as I felt her remember how she had shown me the more carnal uses of the human body earlier in the summer. We had been very busy during the summer doing other fun things as well. I had closed in on where they had her body locked away as well as what it was that they were doing at Wade Elementary School.

However, Alma had found a DVD of a history documentary on battleships and we had watched it together on a materialized DVD player and a big flat screen television. Ever since then, which was also at the beginning of the summer, we had both been obsessed with the giant warships. We had tried to find one so we could see it in real life. However, to our dismay, the return of the Soviet Union had caused a rearmament program by the United States and her allies.

To create more modern vessels for their navies, the world had scraped all of the "obsolete" vessels. Even museum ships, like the U.S.S. Alabama, had been repurchased by the government and then scraped for resources. Wrecked warships, supposedly "protected" as graveyards, had been raised from the bottom of the ocean for their weight in scrap. No vessel was spared. Even famous ships like the Bismarck, Titanic, Britannic, HMS Prince of Whales, and even irradiated hulls like the captured Prinz Eugen, Bismarck's escort during her fatal mission and, later, the survivor of the Bikini Atoll bomb tests, were scraped. The result of the scrounging for resources was the final requiem bell for the armored titans. None of the noble battleships remained anywhere in the world.

At least, that had been what we had thought. Then, in the middle of July, we had learned that, as impossible as it seemed, that the scrapers had missed one. By some miracle, the largest, most heavily armed warship ever constructed by man had been spared. The fallen titan had been located in the South China Sea but, at the last possible second, she had been spared. The official reason was quote: "The extensive destruction of the hull, likely from her own self-destruction during Operation Ten-Go, has made recovery impractical". However, Alma and I personally believed that the Japanese had bought off the salvage crew by sacrificing several of their naval, commercial, and private vessels in the name of preserving the ship.

After all, the ship's very name was a poetic metaphor for Japan itself. In a way, they had been saving themselves by saving the ship. After the end of the Second World War, it had been her that they had looked to for a new sense of masculinity and national pride. Since the exact location of the great warship was a guarded secret, we had been searching the general area for the remainder of the summer. Now, in the final days of my relief from school, we were closing in on her resting place.

Alma, sensing my train of thought, asked, "You ready?" I nodded in response. She smiled gently and, seconds later, we were approximately one thousand feet beneath the surface of the South China Sea, approximately one hundred and eighty miles southwest of Kyushu. In a kind of bubble curtsey of Alma, we began to walk the sea floor in search of the vessel. I carried a large searchlight that I had stolen from Armacham. Meanwhile, Alma carried a copy of the topographic map of the sea floor.

While we continued to converse about random topics, for hours, we searched the area much like how we had for many weeks. Using the map and Alma's unnaturally keen sense of where she was, we searched the noticeable "bumps" on the sea floor for the wreck. We had just searched the last bump on the map, which turned out to be a natural rise, and all hope of ever finding her seemed lost.

As I turned to look at Alma, who had a noticeable expression of immense sorrow that we might never find the magnificent vessel, I had moved to comfort her when I saw a spot glimmer from the darkness as my light's beam made contact with it. I gasped slightly. My companion was riffled out of her sorrow-filled mental retreat at the sound of my gasp. Upon seeing me staring off into the darkness, I saw her expression morph into guarded optimism.

She turned to look and saw the spot sparkling in the beam of the searchlight. Silently, we approached the spot. We shared a mutual hopefulness that the spot was what we suspected that it was. Moments later, like a mountain of steel, the black silhouette of the colossal vessel appeared in the beam of the searchlight. I felt a wave of excitement build inside of me as we continued to approach the battleship.

Then, almost feeling my heart stop, the bow loomed mere feet in front of us. Due to the extreme carnage inflicted upon the warship, it was the spot on her bow that confirmed her identity. The Great Crest, given only to the capital ships of the Imperial Navy, protruded from her bow. At two meters in diameter and made of gold, the Great Crest of the Yamato was the largest ever put on an Imperial vessel. I could barely contain my excitement. It was her: the mighty battleship IJN Yamato.

Moments later, standing on the deck of her shattered bow, I was overcome with a sudden feeling of intense sorrow that was so deep that it caused me to cry out and collapse onto my knees as I clutched the sides of my head. Images suddenly appeared in my head. I saw everything about her. I saw her being built in secret, her sea trials, and being the flagship of the Imperial Navy during the Battle of Midway.

Then, I saw the long periods of being a noncombatant with her sister in Truk Harbor. However, I soon felt her intense feeling of powerlessness as she watched her little sister, IJN Musashi, succumb to nineteen torpedoes and seventeen bombs from swarms of American aircraft while she could do nothing to save her.

Enraged, she avenged her fallen sibling when her powerful guns sank the American escort carrier USS Gambier Bay during the Battle off Samar before the swarming American destroyers and destroyer escorts forced her to avoid a large spread of torpedoes. Her enormous turning radius, though better than the American Iowa-class battleships, was still too large for her to rejoin the fight before the Japanese fleet retreated and she was forced to escort them back to safety rather than continuing to fight.

I felt her feelings of being overwhelmed as the industrial might of the American Navy encroached upon her beautiful home. Not even she could push back the onslaught of never ending combatants. I felt the weight of her people as all their eyes turned to her for their salvation from the Americans. In the name of honor, she answered the call.

Knowing that not even she was a match for the 1500 ships of the American Fleet, she left her home knowing that she would never return. Without air cover, and with only a handful of escorts, it was literally her versus the entire American war machine. I saw her flying her own Kamikaze flag in the place of her normal colors as she steamed full speed towards the American Fleet. Her orders were to fight until destroyed. If her ammunition was exhausted, she was to ram the largest American ship and her crew would board the vessel and fight to the death.

Before she could even get close, she was assailed by hundreds of enemy airplanes. I saw her train the glistening barrels of her mighty 18.1-inch main battery skyward and fire at the incoming flights of aircraft in a defiant expression of power. Her escorts surrounded her in a circle to shield her from the aircraft but they could do little to assist her. All awhile, her overwhelmed anti-aircraft secondary armament filled the air around her with flak busts and machine gun fire. Her powerful main 18.1-inch guns continued to fire enormous columns of shrapnel and flame at the enemy aircraft with her "beehive" rounds.

I saw the American aircraft diving in to strafe her decks with bullets, bombs, and rockets. I could smell the acrid smoke and hear the anguished cries of her crew as their blood washed over her decks. With fires breaking out across her deck and with her radar knocked out early in the fight, her remaining crew could not accurately direct their weapon fire against the incoming torpedo bombers.

One hit at a time, she began to succumb to the assault. However, for two hours, she weathered the damage with counter flooding. She continued to fight like a wounded animal as long as she could until, finally, she could no longer hold back the tide. Dead in the water and on fire from bow to stern, she began to capsize. Knowing that they had finished her, the majority of the Americans left her to die. Only a few aircraft remained to document her final minutes. However, in one final act of defiance, she refused to go quietly. As she rolled over, her forward magazine exploded.

The resulting mushroom cloud was nearly four miles tall and killed an American crew because they had been flying overhead when the explosion occurred. In two sections, her remaining hull had settled on the sea floor. Since then, she had been in complete darkness with only the sea life for company.

The images left my mind along with the intense feelings. As I stood, Alma wrapped her arms around me. Her soft frame pressed against mine as she said, "She wishes to know why we have come. No one comes to visit her anymore."

I addressed the ship, "We just wanted to see you. We think that big ships like you are really cool. Maybe, we could be friends?"

A strange sound rumbled through the water. It sounded like a muffled female voice, but I could have also mistaken a whale call for something supernatural. Either way, Alma informed me, "She said that she would like that."

That is how we first met Athena. Though school and Armacham took up a large portion of my time, we always made time to visit the lonely warship. Alma explained that the Yamato was a unique situation. First, the Japanese people believed so strongly in her that their "spirit" was imprinted on the ship. Second, as a battleship, she was already the embodiment of her people so the psychic energy imprinted on her was amplified nearly hundred fold. As a result, the ship became sentient but unable to do anything because she was a "dead cell". It was not until both Alma and I got near her that the cell became charged. After learning Alma's story, she became sympathetic of our cause and even went on to pledge herself to our cause whenever we called upon her.

"Did this really happen?"

I looked down at Amara as I replied, "Yeah, why?"

She explained, "It's just, when you tell the story, it makes sense but when I tell it to my stuffed animals, I can poke holes in it."

I sighed before I said, "Sweetie, why don't you just enjoy the ride instead of questioning things...okay?"

She flashed an adorable smile before she said, "Okay Daddy." I returned to telling the story.

It was mere days since we had won our home from the clutches of ATC. While I still had blank spots in my past, I was beginning to remember who I was. One of those memories was, of course, our friend waiting at the bottom of the ocean. As we stood there on her bow like we had years earlier, I heard the same sound that I heard whenever she spoke. With Alma in her child form at my side on my right and Alpha 1 on my left, I addressed the giant, "Athena, I know that it has been years. I apologize for that. Please understand. The war has begun. We need you...the world needs you...your people need you. The call has gone out, noble Yamato. Will you not answer it?"

The sound of warping metal filled the sea around us as her hull began to piece itself back together. From the darkness, her huge guns flew towards the gaping holes where they had once rotated. The wooden planks of her deck suddenly rematerialized and put themselves together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Above the sound of the mighty battleship repairing herself, I heard another sound. It started as a low whine but it soon became a nearly deafening maelstrom of musical notes. From my memories of the documentary, I was able to identify the music as being the Imperial Japanese Navy Anthem, "Warship Anthem".

Minutes later, as the rebuilt battleship's lights powered on, revealing the alien-world looking sea floor all around us, I had to stabilize myself as her hull suddenly rocked as she dislodged herself from her resting place. Then, free, like a giant submarine, she began to rise towards the surface. Faster and faster, she raced towards the surface as the music got louder and louder.

The rapid change in pressure caused some of her reinforced glass portholes to shatter but they almost immediately repaired themselves. With her bow up at a slight angle and with her four massive screws turning as fast as their housings and bearings could handle, she plowed through the water as she carried the weight of the ocean on her armored shoulders.

Finally, minutes later, her enormous hull launched itself through the divide between the surface world and the Hell that she had been resigned to since 1945. So great was her speed that she flew a good fifty yards into the air before slamming back down onto the surface of the sea.

The waves generated by her return to the water's surface easily towered as high as her one-hundred foot tall superstructure. Seconds after her return, the mighty battleship blasted her foghorn loudly. As if to prove to the world that she was indeed back, she trained the once again glistening barrels of her 18.1-inch main armament skyward and unleashed a thunderous salvo.

After she calmed down, we sailed towards Japan. When she steamed into her old harbor, someone could have heard a pin drop as everyone present stared at her. The color left their faces and I could not tell if they were beside themselves with happiness or with sadness. The awkward silence was broken when Athena raised the Imperial Japanese Flag and played the Imperial Japanese National Anthem.

The uproar of cheering drowned out the national anthem as individuals of all ages gathered in the harbor as tugboats guided the battleship to moor alongside the cleared out spot along the dock. Naturally, it was a little awkward when they saw us, but the return of the Yamato quickly eased the tension. Experts were called in and they confirmed that she was indeed the famed ship.

After meeting with the Japanese government, we convinced them to loan her to us on the grounds that she was to fly the Japanese Flag at all times and that, at any given moment, they could reclaim her from us. It was their ship after all, and we understood that. She was formally re-commissioned as the JS Yamato and we sailed home to Fairport.

"I can't believe you desecrated a grave site." I looked over Jen and gave her a confused look. She said, "Don't play innocent. Most of her crew died on her. You can't just disturb a grave like that."

Offended, I replied, "Hey, she willingly disturbed her own resting place to help us. Come on, Miss Kwon, you know I wouldn't do something like that."

She huffed before she said, "Whatever...also, it is Mrs. now. Stop calling me miss."

I smirked and then replied, "Sorry, it is a force of habit, Miss Kwon."

I stood on the bow of Athena and faced the horizon before us as the bitter cold sprays of the ocean impacted my form. All around me, the Anglo-Spartan Fleet braved the rough conditions as we sailed towards our objective. There were hundreds of ships of all different size, purpose, and nationality. However, even this unheard of collection of ships was dwarfed by the approaching enemy fleet.

After the liberation of Alaska and the following liberation of South America, Akira sent a massive armada to crush our naval forces and surround us. Where she got all the vessels under her command, I had no idea. Perhaps, like the other pieces of hardware that her soldiers used, they were captured vessels. Regardless of their origins, the massive armada easily threatened what little progress we had made to liberate the world from her.

Our fleet was divided into separate formations. Athena, the flagship of the fleet, was heading the protective line of warships that was comprised of herself: a Yamato-class battleship, the Kirov-class Russian battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy,whose ATC-controlled sister she had sunk in the very same waters months prior, thirty Spartan and American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Atago-class Japanese destroyers, six Daring-class United Kingdom destroyers, and two Luzhou-class Chinese destroyers.

Due to Armacham's decision to render all of their software useless, the combat effectiveness of the ships, with the exception of Athena, was reduced because they had been refitted with their original, quirky software to run their systems. Even still, the advanced warships seemed science fiction next to the archaic battleship.

Meanwhile, behind the protective line of warships, the supporting aircraft carriers and other secondary vessels steamed in relative safety from the incoming juggernaut. Based around the three Ford-class Spartan Supercarriers, Poseidon, Themistocles, and Leonidas were ten other aircraft carriers from various navies. Alongside the massive fleet carriers were smaller auxiliary carriers like the U.S.S. America. The air around us vibrated from the fighter jets of the carriers as they patrolled the skies in a protective fighter cover.

Below the surface fleet, dozens of submarines headed by the Ohio-class Spartan submarine Persephone gracefully sliced through the ocean depths ready to unleash their payload at a moment's notice. Along with the American and Spartan nuclear submarines was the recently repaired ex-Soviet Typhoon-class Dmitri Donskoi.

During the evacuation of Russia, the large ballistic submarine, the largest in the world, had been forced to ram her way through ice to ensure that her cargo, the Russian High Command, escaped the attacking forces of Akira. The action severely damaged her bow to the point that multiple forward compartments were flooded. Only her sheer size was her salvation as the old Cold War veteran weathered the damage long enough to reach the East Coast of the United States. With parts from decommissioned "mothballed" American submarines, the old girl was given a new lease on life.

I worried about her though. Like the rest of her already decommissioned younger sisters, the old submarine had already far exceeded her life expectancy. It was either a miracle or a testament to the prowess of her builders that she was still seaworthy, let alone battle worthy. Now, in her winter years, she was about to go into battle against more advanced and newer ships of greatly superior strength and number.

However, despite her age, her lethal payload of torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, her Bulava SLBMs were still suffering technical issues and were also deemed too impractical for the coming engagement so her crew had, hesitantly, agreed to refit her with western cruise missiles while she was being repaired, could still annihilate anything in her path. While her standoff capacity had been significantly reduced by removing her nuclear warheads, her refitted launchers still had the destructive power of roughly one hundred and twenty missiles.

Meanwhile, Akira's Navy consisted of a mixture of vessels similar to our own. Reconnaissance revealed that the massive armada appeared to have the elderly Russian Pallada-class protected cruiser Aurora among their ranks. The rest of the enemy fleet, however, was purely modern. From what we could see on Hannibal-3 satellite surveillance, there was about a dozen aircraft carriers and hundreds of supporting smaller vessels.

In total, the enemy fleet numbered 1,300 vessels, though most were small escorts that would be reserved to protection duty of the carriers as well as the non-combat supply vessels. Thus, the true number was reduced to somewhere around 500. Even still, they still outnumbered us in terms of warships.

The only advantages that we possessed were the mighty guns and fighting prowess of Athena and the inhumane skill of the Spartans.

"Michael, again? You really need to stop narrating your own life. It's kind of creepy. Also, do I not count for anything?"

I turned to see Alma in her clothed adult form as she gave me a half-hearted glare. I suddenly felt warm and realized, much to my embarrassment, that I was blushing. Seeing this, my beautiful companion remarked, "Aw...still the cute little human boy that I fell in love with."

Blushing even harder, I replied, "Hey, you were still human when we met."

She smirked before she teased while she raised her left eyebrow, "Was I? Why is it that you called me goddess then?"

I sighed and then said, "Alright, you got me. Don't be so smug about it."

She winked before she remarked, "Aw, so cute."

Trying to reclaim some dignity, I asked, "So, do you have any idea where she got so many ships?"

My goddess thought for a moment and then explained, "Well...she did manage to open a portal between our universe and the underworld. So…it is not completely out of the realm of possibility that she opened a portal to her own universe and moved the naval vessels there to our universe."

Before I could reply, Alpha 1 rushed towards us as he said, "Brother, we are within range of their cruise missiles. Report from combat: radar has bandits coming in bearing 120, 140, and 150."

Pulling my skull ski mask over my face, I replied, "Copy, let's get to the bridge!" He nodded and we began running towards the superstructure. As we did, I contacted Athena 1 through our telepathic link, "Captain, order battle stations. Signal all ships to begin evasive maneuvers at five hundred meter spread and to increase their speed to ahead full. Warn the tin cans to give Athena a wide birth…at full speed, her wake will swamp them if they get too close."

Athena 1 replied, "Roger that, Commander."

Seconds later, a high-pitched alarm rocked the air around the battleship as the voice of a Replica announced, "This is not a drill! This is not a drill! General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!" I had to shift my weight to prevent falling to the deck as Athena increased her speed to ahead full, which, for her, was around 28 knots. The sound of mechanical whirring filled the air as her primary and secondary weaponry unlocked to be able to swivel and fire.

We reached the nearest exterior hatch that allowed access into the superstructure. A Replica sailor was waiting for us. He closed and then sealed the hatch behind us. Minutes later, we had reached the bridge. As we entered, I saw Athena 1 and Foxtrot 813 around the holographic emitter.

The emitter displayed a three-dimensional live report of our surroundings, including the incoming enemy air units. As I stood before the emitter and studied the image, Athena 1 addressed me, "Sir, I insist that you go to the admiral's quarters. The armor around it is thicker."

Though I was grateful for his concern, I replied, "Negative, I will not cower in the face of the enemy." Looking back at the emitter, I asked, "Morales, do you copy?"

A line emerged from the holographic image of Persephone and went to a corner of the image before its end became a square readout similar to what my HUD would display. Morales's communication link appeared as he replied, "Affirmative. We ready to rock, man?"

I informed him, "We have incoming enemy air units. Stay alert for enemy submersibles. Do you have a lock on the enemy surface fleet?"

He replied, "Affirmative, Persephone, U.S.S. Ohio, U.S.S. Florida, U.S.S. Georgia,and Dmitri Donskoi have targets locked. Say the word, and half the fleet disappears."

Not wanting to reveal our entire hand before I had to, I replied, "Copy, standby."

He said, "Roger that, man."

As the square returned to the holographic image of his submarine, Alpha 1 remarked, "It is very likely that Akira's Forces have comparable numbers in submarines, Brother."

I looked at him and replied in agreement, "I agree, but we have to focus on one enemy at a time." He nodded in response. For several minutes, I watched the image of the enemy air units get closer and closer. As they closed to five nautical miles, our own fighter cover of Spartan and American F-22 Raptors, Russian Sukhoi PAK FA's, and several Eurofighter Typhoons roared to intercept them.

However, the incoming air units, comprising of both air-superiority fighters and attack aircraft, outnumbered the veteran pilots of our air cover nearly five to one. It was only a matter of time before several units would break through. Moreover, the three groups were coming in at different altitudes. The first group, presumably the fighters, was coming in at high altitude to challenge our air cover. The second group was coming in at a more moderate altitude. The final group was coming in at wave-top level.

Worse, with so many aircraft in the same area, our supporting warships' anti-aircraft systems could potentially lock onto a friendly rather than an enemy. Unlike our battleship's traditional armament, the newer anti-air armament was largely controlled electronically. While, in theory, that made them more effective, the removal of the "human element" made them susceptible to software glitches that had already caused multiple friendly fire incidents during tests.

As the first wave met our fighter cover, the two groups began an intense dogfight. Akira's Forces were using identical equipment to our own. The battle was turning into a "David vs. Goliath" contest. It would all come down to the skill of our soldiers and, of course, the firepower of our mighty battleship.

As I watched our outnumbered veteran pilots struggle against the numerically superior enemy fighters, I noticed that the second wave of aircraft had managed to break through the distracted fighters. One of the sailors on the bridge announced, "Captain, we have visual contact on incoming aircraft. Identified as F-35 Lightning II's."

Watching the emitter's image, I saw the twenty incoming fighter-bombers maintaining formation as they closed in on our position. As they continued to close the distance, our destroyer escorts opened fire with their missiles, prompting the aircraft to perform evasive maneuvers and deploy their countermeasures. Most of the missiles missed their targets but one fired from one of the Daring-class destroyers scored a direct hit. The destroyed jet plummeted into the sea in a fireball.

Meanwhile, Athena made her presence known by opening up with her flak cannons and machine guns. As her secondary weapons assailed the jet aircraft with their, remarkably accurate, volleys of lead, she trained her main armament. Again and again, she scored direct hits on the jets with her secondary weapons. However, unlike the prop aircraft of her generation, the advanced F-35's were able to evade her follow-up rounds before she could finish them off.

Even still, Athena's overwhelming anti-air barrage forced the aircraft to split away from each. Without their coordination, the enemy jets' ability to attack our vessels was significantly hindered. The Lightning's were now easy prey for our escorting warships. Within five minutes, all but three of the attacking air units were destroyed.

However, as its brethren's attack was faltering, one Lightning took aim at us. Powering through the battleship's dizzying curtain of lead, the fighter-bomber roared towards us from slight off our front starboard. Even when the nearby Russian battlecruiser fired multiple anti-air missiles in an effort to assist the assailed sentient battleship, the jet continued on its path towards us.

The Hellspawn pilot was surely seconds from firing his F-35's two anti-ship Joint Strike Missiles. He did not even have to fire them. If he flew his jet into us, the armed warheads would detonate. Effectively, the incoming F-35 was now a supersonic guided bomb. I gripped the edges of the emitter tightly as my heart began to pound painfully in my chest. Athena was immortal, but we were not.

Even as flak and machine gun rounds tore apart his jet, the pilot, amazingly, was able to keep the dying aircraft straight and level. Nothing seemed to be able to avert the incoming kamikaze. However, at the last second, Bruno, Athena's second fore main turret, fired all three of its barrels.

At, literally, point blank range, the powerful 18.1-inch turret's "beehive" anti-air incendiary rounds obliterated the F-35. The few pieces of metal shards that reached her armored hull harmlessly bounced off her thick armor. Meanwhile, the flaming carcass of the Lightning slammed into the surface of the ocean mere inches off our starboard side near Bruno.

Everyone on the bridge let out a sigh of relief. Relaxing, I released my grip on the edges of the emitter. Athena 1 commented, "Damn, that's almost enough to make someone want to drink."

I asked, "Wait, you have alcohol? You're not holding out on us…are you captain?"

Athena 1 replied, "Negative, sir. I run a clean ship."

I remarked, "Oh..."

Alma materialized between Alpha 1 and me in her child form as she said, "Michael, stop talking big…you're a hopeless teetotaler and you know it."

I replied, "I prefer to be sober, thank you. If that is wrong, then people can mind their own damn business. Alcohol is a depressant and I have enough to be depressed about already…like you."

She giggled as she hugged me around my waist with her tiny pale arms. Then, as she looked up at me with her beautiful glowing eyes, she said, "Aw, lighten up Mr. Grumpy."

I smiled slightly before ruffling her hair with my gloved right hand as I said, "Alright, Mrs. Grumpy." Then, as I removed my hand, I asked, "Hey, sweetie, that reminds me…when we had the threesome…wasn't it technically a foursome because of Athena?"

As she straightened her hair, my wife replied, "Hmm…" Then, she flashed me a slight smile before she continued, "Yes, actually…it was."

I smiled back for a moment before I said, "I love you."

She replied, "I love you too."

By then, the remaining F-35's had been destroyed. The air around the fleet grew relatively quiet as Athena's anti-aircraft weapons fell silent. Minutes later, when the third group, which was a group of fighter-bombers of roughly the same number as the previous, was wiped out in a similar manner except none of them managed to get near Athena, though they did manage to destroy an American Arleigh Burke-class and a Daring-class destroyer, the airborne threat appeared to be effectively neutralized. Our fighters were still engaged in a fierce dogfight with the remaining enemy units from the first group, but the threat to our surface vessels was gone.

However, before we could even remotely celebrate, a warning tone filled the interior of the bridge. Athena 1 asked, "What is it?"

One of the sailors informed him, "Captain, incoming cruise missiles."

I saw the incoming swarm of a mixture of Western Tomahawks and Russian SS-N-30A's. There were hundreds of them. Akira's submarines must have launched them en mass. I ordered, "Signal all ships to increase their speed to ahead flank!"

He replied, "Roger that, sir."

Moments later, Athena lurched as she increased her speed to ahead flank, which was about 32 knots. Meanwhile, she turned her mighty main battery skyward and opened fire with her "beehive" rounds. This time, however, her special trick could not stop the incoming threat. Her special rounds managed to destroy dozens of them with a single shoot, but her main guns' slow fire rate of two rounds per minute prevented her from being able to neutralize all of them before they reached the fleet.

Seconds after her second volcano-like salvo, the remaining missiles began to rain down on our vessels like a steel thunderstorm. Athena's secondary armament went into action and the air around the fleet was once again filled with flak burst and machine gun fire. However, this was a vain effort on her part. Her archaic anti-aircraft guns simply could not destroy them all despite the clouds of metal and fire that she unleashed upon the screaming warheads.

Huge columns of water appeared around our escorts as they outmaneuvered the lethal warheads. However, seconds later, four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers were hit after their Mk 45 5-inch naval guns and 20 mm M61 Vulcan Gatling gun autocannon Close-in weapon systems failed to destroy them in time. Three of them were destroyed outright as enormous explosions shattered their hulls. The fourth was left ablaze and listing heavily to port.

A minute later, one of the Chinese Luzhou-class destroyers suffered a direct hit from two missiles and sank moments later, presumably taking her entire crew with her. The Russian battlecruiser suffered three direct hits to her foredeck. The resulting explosions seemed crippling but her captain reported that her damage control teams were managing and that she was still combat-capable though they had to reduce her speed to ahead standard to prevent overwhelming the pumping system.

Just when it seemed like the carnage was about to be over, the last barrage of missiles honed in on Athena herself. I was thrown to the steel floor as one missile struck our starboard side near our side-mounted row of 25mm cannons. Seconds later, another slammed into in the port side of our foredeck just behind Bruno, barely missing the superstructure by a foot. Another struck the helipad located near the stern, destroying the moored Sea Knight helicopters. Explosion after explosion rocked the battleship as the incoming missiles penetrated the reduced shield of the damaged secondary armament. In total, seven missiles struck Athena.

However, the armored behemoth refused to yield to the attack and continued to fire her remaining armament, destroying most of the incoming missiles. She even went so far as to raise her 18.1-inch gun barrels as high as they would go and fire traditional 3,000-pound warheads. At the close range, she was able to hit the incoming missiles with her main battery and the raw power of her shots outright annihilated them. Meanwhile, her agility, which was superior to the Western battleships, proved its worth as she dodged the warheads that penetrated her wall of steel and fire.

Suddenly, the thunderous roar stopped. The emitter was temporarily offline due to the damage so I had to look through the viewports. There, I saw the last five missiles raining down on us towards our bow. Athena would easily be dodge them or destroy them. I breathed a sigh of relief. Or, at least I started too until I saw her main battery return to their non-combat positions and noticed that she had straightened her course.

The musical tones of the Imperial Japanese Navy Anthem blared loudly as I heard her repairing herself. Meanwhile, she continued on a straight course as the missiles screamed towards us. With their combined payload, they could easily blow off our bow. I asked nervously, "Uh...Athena...is this about the foursome thing? Come on, it was a joke. I don't care what anyone says, Japanese women are sexy."

The sentient battleship continued steaming forward at flank speed. As the warheads closed in, suddenly, she dropped both her anchors but continued plowing through the water at flank speed. Realizing what she was doing, I informed everyone on the bridge, "Holy...hold onto something!" I tried to find something to brace myself with but I could not find something in time. Seconds later, mere moments before the missiles would slam into our bow, the anchor chains clanged loudly as they ran out of length and her anchors snagged the sea floor.

As the sound of stretching metal and snapping deck planks filled the air, Athena plugged bow first beneath the surface of the water like a diving submarine. Meanwhile, I was painfully thrown against the armored wall of the front of the bridge. We plunged a good ten meters beneath the surface of the water. The warheads exploded harmlessly against the surface. After they had, Athena detached her anchor chains and her buoyancy returned her to the surface.

I promised her from where I was against the front of the bridge, "It won't happen again." She gave off a quick blast of her foghorn in response.

As I got back to my feet, Alpha 1 said, "For real? Uh, brother, I think you need to see this. Our day just got a whole lot more interesting."

After getting to my feet, I walked over him. He pointed down at the emitter's image. Looking at it, I gasped as I saw what had caused our day to get more interesting. The emitter was displaying an updated view of the approaching line of enemy warships. If I had not seen it on the emitter's live projection, I would not have believed it. However, there, amongst the other warships of Akira's Navy, was none other than Athena's old rivals themselves: the Iowa-class battleships, the U.S.S. Iowa, U.S.S. New Jersey, U.S.S. Missouri, and U.S.S. Wisconsin.

Foxtrot 813 asked, "What the fuck? How...?"

I realized that Alma must have been right about where Akira had gotten her fleet and explained, "They must not have been scrapped in her universe...hmm...well played little Akira." Then, I addressed the armor titan, "Athena, you have always said that you have wanted a second chance to prove that you are not a failure. Well...here it is. What do you say? Think you can take on the entire Iowa-class without killing us in the process?"

She blasted her foghorn and fired her front two main guns. Then, correcting her course, she steamed towards the enemy battleships. I looked over at Athena 1 and said, "Signal all ships to form up with us."

He replied, "Yes, sir."

One of the sailors reported, "Captain, Athena 204 reports that Athena has lowered the Spartan flag and is only flying her old Imperial Japanese flag."

Athena 1 looked at me but I shook my head. He informed the sailor, "Disregard, let her go."

He replied, "Yes, sir."

I looked forward out the viewports of the bridge as we plowed through the water towards the enemy battleships. It was time to settle what historians had argued about for years: how many Western battleships was the IJN Yamato worth?