1 hour in this new body and Liberator has already learned some new things.
She had just learned -from her crew- that she has a tactical pad the size of normal hand phone, which had somehow connected to this world internet stored inside her left trouser pocket. And thanks to this as well as the internet, she managed to obtain further information on the world she currently standing on. Said information was both relieving and frightening her at the same time.
First, today's date is 17th of July 2020. Exactly three year after the ODIN strike hit the mainland. By now, there's should be a massive tug of war between the Fed and the US Army on the Southern states, while the navy –including her- duking it out with the near peer Federation navy for the control of the West coast and subsequently the Pacific. And yet, there's none of it in this brave new world.
Second, there's no Federation, no Orbital Defense Initiative (ODIN), and most importantly, no Federation war. Hell, this world didn't even had the Tel Aviv war to begin with. Instead, there's the Abyssal. A manifestation of vengeful ship spirit that seek for the destruction of humanity, from what she can gathered. A problem that had been plaguing this world for several years. Because of them, worldwide shipping routes had gone practically backwards to the day the German Wolfpack was still around. Thankfully, the Abyssal seems content on just terrorizing the ocean, thus leaving the world mainland relatively save.
Humanity for their part, creates Shipgirls. The humanity equivalent to the Abyssal, one that is more human and less monster like appearance. And she, USS Liberator, was one of them. Though unfortunately, the shipgirls that can be summoned –Yes, you heard that right- can only be originating from WW2 era down. But nevertheless, they're already effective enough on dealing the Abyssal. She can already smelled the scent of politics when she do eventually known to the world, a task she hates to even look at.
Third, she just found out that her right trouser pocket contained an MP3 player and a headset. When she investigate the content of the MP3, she found a buck load of music files stored within. She was 100% sure this thing containing every music files her crews had, every single one of them. Fortunately, her crews were somewhat okay with this when she approached them of this issue. So, free music I guess…
As of now, Liberator was leisurely sliding on the water (this thing will still boggles her) as her radar scanning the air for anything. Fenrir had already flown ahead of her shortly after some R&R, adding another layer of security for her. While she was doing this, her mind was occupied somewhere else entirely.
Here she was, a US aircraft carrier-turned-shipgirl from another world heading to Japan for supplies. Then what? She got no order to do, no command structure to follow, nor direction to go except Japan. Sure, she can reenlist to the US Navy the moment she arrived. But…something just rub her the wrong way about that, it feels like she was betraying her own version of the US Navy. One that she serves for twelve years without complained. While offering her services to the JMSDF for supply is an option, the vicious eyes and ears of politics will surely makes that a bigger problem than meets the eye.
'You know. I might have an idea on how to deal with this…' Her captain address to her.
"And what is that, sir?" Liberator asked to…her. Weird, she was certainly sure her captain was a man, so does most of her crews. Unbeknownst for her though, her captain can literally hear what's inside of her thought.
'For your question regarding us, we don't know the answer either. The moment we, includes you, wakes up, we already found our body becoming female. But back on the track, do you still remember my meeting with the president?' Her captain answer both of her question, with the former being another question.
Liberator can only dumfounded the moment her captain catches her off guard. Luckily, she manage to sober up from her stupor to respond her captain question. "Firstly, sir. You should know better that my mind, and in extension, my thought, is off limit except for me only" She growled to her. "Secondly, yes. You have a meeting with the President and High Command after the battle of West Coast. Though, I don't know the topic nor the conclusion of the meeting. Sir" She responded respectfully.
Liberator can feel her captain nodding along on her answer, before responding to the problem on hand. 'Well, Liberator…That meeting was held to discuss on how to handle the Navy and the Pacific theater. With the threat from the Federation navy had been successfully repelled, the same can't be said on the mainland. Thus, the president with high consideration from High Command released "Presidential decree No.2". Stated, that the Pacific theater will be commanded independently from the armed forces and the flagship captain will be appointed Commander. That means you, can decided on what to do since the President himself as well as High Com had given the permission to do so. Of course, it still can be breached by this world US President or High Com-'
"-Unless if I leave out the last part" Liberator finished on her captain words. Then, a wide grin plastered her face the moment she catch the meaning. "And since I was the fleet flagship, that means I have the full authority on myself!" She said before proceeding to laugh. A wholeheartedly laugh mind you, one that she haven't had for years.
"HAHAHAHA. Take that, you Federation bastards! You thought you can kill me right!? Then guess what? I'm back baby, wohooow!" Liberator howled, uncaring on anything else besides this news. While inside of her, her captain and crews can only sighed on Liberator unprofessional behavior. "Thank you, sir! For bringing me this good news" She thanked her captain.
'Don't mind it, Liberator. We're in this one together, so seeing you happy makes me and the crew happy too. And don't call me captain anymore, you command your own, just call me Sam' her cap-no…Sam said to her. Genuine happiness shown inside her tone.
"Right then. Thank you Sam. You're the greatest" Came Liberator respond. And she meant it, Sam was the best captain she had. That is because Sam was used to be a mere Bridge officer in the Liberator back then. But when the Federation navy came knocking down on the United States doorstep a week after the strike, her original captain and most of the higher rank crews had unfortunately KIA leading the defensive effort. Leaving Sam to take the charge as she was the highest in command. Since then, Sam had led Liberator and her crew, as well as the remains of the US navy, in a ten year long stalemate with the Fed's navy. Forcing the Feds to just doing some prodding attack to test the water, so to say.
But before she can continued her travel to the past, Fenrir had decided to break it with an important message. Liberator then quickly changed her normal sight to Fenrir lead plane –new ability discovered- to see what bothering the squadron. And she was greeted with a sight of even more abyssals, though that's not the only thing to greet her. That will be the shipgirls. Humanity greatest weapon against the abyssal.
She can already see the form of a battleships and Cruisers -of both size- shipgirls lobbing some shells to the abyssal, while their destroyers counterpart were spamming torpedoes and small caliber cannons while nimbly dodging shells left and right. The carrier shipgirls were flinging planes as fast as they could load and draw their….bows? ...Well, if it works, it works then. She wasn't gonna argued with that, already accepting the fact that this world has its own bullshittery.
Unfortunately though, the shipgirls were losing. Judging by the fact that they are outnumbered two to one, as well as having most of their members dead in the water waiting to be encircled by the nightmare fleet.
Liberator couldn't stand as the fleet is getting annihilated by a….monsterization? …of naval engineering, especially if she can help with that. Thus an idea was forming inside of her, grinned mouth showing some predatory teeths as she already has a plan ready to go. Just needing some preparation and a little tweaking here and there.
"Hey Sam. How long does it take for Argus to load their weapons and ready for sortie?" Liberator ask the former captain regarding her second ground attack squadron. While Raven squadron is a more all-rounder attack squadron, Argus squadron was a nightmare to any ground targets since their weapons consisted of JASSM(s). A truly devastating weapon to any unfortunate targets.
'76 seconds. The JASSM's needed to be delivered first' Sam answered. 'Why pick Argus and not Raven, though? Both of them basically do the same, with Raven carrying more load than Argus. That, and deploying them with the usual loadout will drain the resources even more' Sam mused. Although Sam was right, she already had a plan for this peculiar situation.
"Simple answer, Sam. Superior firepower. Just like we used to do before the Tel Aviv War. Granted, the move will drained our resources faster, but I think it's worth the cost" Liberator reasoned to her, despite the latter still strong disagreement. "Though, prepared Raven as well. The moment Argus had RTB, I want Raven already in the air"
'Understood. But don't forget I warned you, alright?' Sam responded. Before relaying the command to the rest of the crew.
"Noted" Liberator simply respond. The sound of fingers cracking can be heard as Liberator prepared her first true battle in this world. "Alright then you monster freak. Let's see what you can offer" she muttered to herself before preparing the launch sequence.
"Oh this will be fun..."
[]-[]-[]-[]
"Yeah, definitely a small fleet" Musashi sarcastically remarked while she narrowly dodged a shell from an abyssal battleship.
Initially, she and her small fleet of shipgirls were heading to Japan from Hawaii after attending a joint naval exercise with the American. But then Akagi's recon flight reporting a small fleet of abyssal heading to somewhere in the Pacific near them. After a brief discussion with Nagato, they've agreed to confront the fleet. Unfortunately for the shipgirls, they're ambushed by a flotilla of abyssal submarines that guarding the abyssal fleet minutes from reaching said fleet. In response, the nearest naval station –which is Yokosuka- send a DesDiv with Cruiser escorts stationed there to help. The abyssal on the other hand, decided to throw even more to the fray, which prompted Yokosuka to do the same.
This move then repeating itself for at least four more times before Yokosuka eventually run out of shipgirls to send whilst the Abyssal determined to destroy them completely by pouring reinforcement once again. Thus, a simple confrontation has changed into a full blown naval battle. What a time to live isn't?
Musashi's AAs roared as they line their sight to a flight of abyssal bombers, shredding some of them while forcing the rest to abandon their mission.
"Nagato! Tell them we need those reinforcements now!" Musashi yelled to the flagship as she fired her bow turrets portside onto an abyssal cruiser, said cruiser then proceed to blew up after its ammo storage was introduced to Musashi's forty-six cm AP shells.
"Saying that will not make them go faster, Musashi!" The flagship, Nagato, respond. Her four by forty-one cm cannons busied themselves targeting cruisers and destroyers, which mostly success on the latter than the former. "Besides, they will arrived in 6 minutes so hold it to yourself" Nagato offhandedly added.
"Well, we'll be Sashimi in 5 if they didn't come faster" Musashi said while she focused her sight into her abyssal counterpart before releasing a broadside salvo, which missed over the target by mere inches. The abyssal battleship on the other hand managed to score some hits that fortunately stopped by Musashi's thick armor.
Unfortunately, the duel had distracted Musashi long enough for some dive bombers to slip past her AA screen and dove for her, a good 10 of them. Musashi turn the rudder hard starboard to screw the aircrafts aim whilst her AA gun keeping the screen to halt them. Five planes went down to the seas trailing fire and smoke just before they delivered their payload. The rest had managed to delivered their package.
Three miss and two hits, and those two were bad. Musashi roared as one missed her stern turrets, but instead completely wrecking her rudder and most of the engine. The other smashed the space between her two bow turrets making both inoperable, leaving her stern turrets the only operable gun. In short, she was dead in the water and a ripe target for abyssal strike.
She saw them, eight more dive bombers moving straight to her position. Musashi let her AA and secondary armament roared in defiance, letting the planes know she wasn't gonna down without a fight. Though they keep moving closer, almost laughing in her attempt to drive them away. She could see their payload on the planes fuselages, a two hundred kilogram of high explosives bomb looming over her eyes.
This was it. This is how she'd died. By carrier-launched dive bomber.
At least she go down fighting, that's for sure.
But her head jerked back up when she heard the sound of explosion above her. What had once been abyssal planes had been reduced to shrapnel. She heard the telltale mounting roar of jet engines long before she caught sight of the aircrafts. Two grey F/A-18E Super Hornets, each looking too small to be a full sized aircraft, streaked overhead. Yet before the duo leave her sight, more sound of jet engines can be heard around the place. Then she saw them, five more F/A-18E dropping in from the skies to prey upon the outdated abyssal planes. Missiles easily destroying enemy aircrafts while their Gatling cannon shredding the poor abyssal airframe.
Just as Musashi watched, nearly awe struck, her radar informed her of unknown contacts from the east. Fearing for another air strike, she turned her attention east and instead greeted by the sight of a seven planes squadron of more Super Hornets flying towards the abyssal fleet, albeit with different loadout from what she can see. But before she can wondering what the squadron payload is, the planes fired off all their load and then jerked their craft towards the skies. While the payload were gliding smoothly to targets. It was then Musashi realized what their payload is, and her expression was a horrified one.
Cruise missile. Those are cruise missiles.
How can she not be terrified? The moment each of the cruise missiles reach its intended targets, they exploded and heavily damaged anything –even sinking some- in its blast radius. Already the scales was tipped to the shipgirls side as the strike outright massacring the abyssal and throw the survivors into disarray, while the shipgirls themselves were just shocked by the sheer size of the explosion and damage the strike caused.
[This is USS Liberator to hopefully friendly shipgirls…] A new voice suddenly crackled over Musashi's radio as the squadron that had fired the cruise missiles fly eastward, only to be replace by another squadron with an entirely different loadout.
[…Who's ordering some Sea Monster Barbeque?]
