Decelerating from flank speed, Hailey skidded slowly to a halt, a large upswing of wake splashing lightly on the fleet of assembled shipgirls, she flashed them a warm smile and waited as Haggard and Stewart moved in to join the gathering.
Atlanta gave her one of her trademark thoughtful looks and adjusted her glasses, "Hailey.", The cruiser greeted.
"'Lanta!" Hailey confirmed smiling and sing song in her report.
"You reported arial contacts."
Hailey gave an enthusiastic nod, "Sure did, travelling slow, bearing six zero, couldn't tell but there were a lot of them, probably at least a carrier's worth."
"How slow?"
Hailey tool a pensive expression, twiddling her fingers lightly, "Near biplane slow, maybe a bit faster," she announced finally.
Iowa scanned the area with her optics steadily as Atlanta debriefed the girl.
"Any variance in speed, or signs of escort."
"Geez 'lanta, I don't know. Maybe?" Hailey announced defensively.
"I can't see them," Iowa interrupted, "Are you sure they're there?"
"Radar never lies!" Haggard announced proudly, "in fact-" she turned to Atlanta, grinning wildly, "I've picked them up too too!"
Iowa shot Haggard a judgemental look, "You know when I fought the Spanish we beat them without relying too much on things like radar."
"Back in my day-" Haggard countered.
"Right," Atlanta interrupted, focusing herself in the direction of thr incoming aircraft, "looks like two groups of bombers with escort. Odds are they'll be going for larger slower ships, I'd like Iowa up near the container ship. Stewart, you stick with her, the Taffys and San Juan will form a screen. Wait until you're more like than not to hit, I don't want to scatter them prematurely."
A chorus of various acknowledgements went up as the formation broke into its respective orders, leaving Iowa and Stewart aways behind the others.
Iowa idly began checking her ammunition, boiler pressure, coal loads, and other systems. Each station one after the other eagly proclaiming combat readiness.
"Iowa." Stewart said tersely.
"Huh?"
"My anti-aircraft isn't what it used to be, if they get too close you're probably better off just trying to take full evasive action. Make yourself as inconvenient of a target as possible."
"Oh-right."
"Your own anti-aircraft is worthless, throw up what you can to dissuade them, but focus on self preservation not shooting them down, even I'm more useful than you and a single one of the fletchers can bag a hundred times what you could."
"Hey! I'm hardly worthless" Iowa announced defensively, "I'm a battleship! I may be old but I can still fight!"
Stewart looked on blankly.
"Yeah!" Iowa continued to challenge, "I bet I bag more than you do."
Stewart simply sighed and began scanning the horizon.
Iowa smiled and continued loading.
"Visual contact!" San Juan confirmed, breaking the expanded silence of the screen ships operating ahead of Iowa and Stewart. "Damn those are some ugly sons of bitches."
Atlanta raised her optics, "Bearing two-6, speed looks just about over 100 knots. Looks about 100 aircraft in total, all biplanes."
"So who's angry at us now?" Hailey asked pensively.
"If I had to guess, those look like Swordfishes and Gladiators, but it's hard to confirm this far out, did everyone bring VT fused shells?" She asked, casting a particularly accusatory glance at Haggard.
"One time-!" Haggard defended.
Atlanta shook her head and continued to track.
The distant sound of a hundred radial aircraft engines began to faintly buzz as the girls tracked targets and prepared their fire controls. The electric sounds of dozens of twin and single five inch gun turrets turning to effective range at one cut through the air.
A cold silence took the screen, targeting solutions plotted, guns wheeled into position and ammo moved up. The faint sounds of ocean water and the flapping of Battle standards audible above the thing roar of the engines.
The silence was broken abuptly by the roar of a full broadside, Atlanta violently discharging all 14 5" guns on her starboard broadside, she was followed soon by her sister's equally impressive spread, the Taffys soon joined in, each gun erupting one after the other in an irregular staccato of naval gunfire.
The front ranks of the aircraft were absolutely devastated. Despite being Abyssals and organic the 'rules' dictated that their fundemental nature was still of plywood and cloth and the massive barrage of proximity fused AA fire threw devestating holes into the group. Those that survived the intial volley scattered into individual squadrons or planes, many dropping low to avoid the fire as they had with the larger Bismark, a vain attempt with the lower traversing fire of a destroyer, but the formation succeeded in making the planes that remained less appeal targets with the breakup up the groupings.
As if dictated by the murderous bombardment the waves rippled with the shock of a deafening and beastly roar.
"Jesus fuck!" San Juan cried over the radio "What the hell was that?! Is anyone hit."
Atlanta glanced alarmed towards the ships in her charge, the Taffys and her sister appeared unhurt. The seas as well were calm excepting the now dispersed squadrons of aorcrafting
Looking finally back, her alarm ebbed to mild frustration as she was revealed the cause of the explosion. Iowa stood, proudly and domineering, gun smoke trailing out of her 12" guns, the smaller turrets moving to track the scattering Swordfish.
Atlanta let out of sigh, before keying her radio, "Calm down everyone, it was just Iowa's main battery."
The net was quiet for a second as the other ships processed the information through the steady pounding and tracking of 5" guns, "does she know what VT fuses are?" Haggard asked.
"I doubt it," San Juan countered, stealing a glance at the happy grin and what appeared to be excited shouting coming off the battleship "but she seems like she thinks she helping and is definitely having fun."
The sound of medium caliber gunfire interrupted the conversation as San Juan's bofors caught range of a squadron, causing even more losses, before the other ships began to pick up their own fire. The addition of medium caliber guns to the US naval fire left dozens more of the Swordfish down. But still they persisted, driven by mad abysaal urges.
"They're too scattered!" Franks cried, bofors and 5" guns rapidly erupting at a widly differing degrees of fire, "I can't track them all."
"Come on," San Juan retaliated, "They don't have shit on Kates or Zeros, they're not even trying to crash into you!"
The 25mms and .50 Cal's soon joined in, the Abyssals turned from scattered squadrons, to pairs through the growing net of fire. A scant dozen bombers and half the fighters flying near in contact with screen ships.
A mixed squadron of the aircraft, loose in formation rolled downwards, low and level straight towards Hailey. Blocking access to the transports beyond the girl traversed her AA suite towards the incoming aircraft, discharging round after round of high, medium, and small caliber anti air towards the vulnerable biplanes.
One of the first bofors shells found its mark and detonated just above a Gladiator ahead of the destroyer. The plane kicked upwards, fire trailing out its hull and soon took to spiraling in a deadly spiral straight towards the American. Kicking engines into full, Hailey pulled just ahead of the burning Abyssal as it crashed harmlessly into the water.
And she noticed the rest fly on past, straight towards her charges.
"They got through!" She called desperately through her radio.
Iowa was in her element again. She found herself completely focused on the battle, 12" and 8" guns working near full capacity, batteries exchanging empty brass for new shells as fast as they would be able. Ahead of her the screening girls were putting out an outstanding amount of anti aircraft fire, supplemented by Iowa's own even larger guns of course.
Interrupting the battleship's focus, Hailey let out a yell, eliciting Atlanta to look alarmed back behind her gunline, not towards Iowa herself, but towards the pair of torpedo bombers moving low and flying straight and level towards the aging pre dreadnaught, tracer fire and explosions ripping up and down nearby the incoming aircraft ineffectually.
"Stewart!" Iowa called, attempting to alert the girl before realizing she was, in fact the source of said tracer fire.
"Take evasive action!" Stewart rebuttled coldly.
Iowa ignored her, 8" guns clanking with loud mechanical effort into position as gunners sighted the straight and level profiles of the biplanes, her larger battery slowly rotating to join them.
"Fire at will!" Iowa yelled proudly, pumping her fist forward as he thunderous staccato of her secondaries erupted towards the approaching planes.
And straight and ineffectually past them.
"Shit." Iowa cursed bitterly, "I need the fastest reload you can! And someone get the marines up here!"
Closing steadily into torpedo range there was little doubt to Iowa at this point who the intended target was, the ineffectual fire from what few marines she had on deck scored at best glancing blows against the aircraft as Iowa's frustration at missing turned to blatant alarm at the fast closing torpedo delivery platforms.
A large and firey explosion detonated near center of the lead bomber, vapprozing it instantly. The second was only slightly more fortunate, sent into a wild partial spin eliciting and eliciting a cheer from the battleahip at her unknown savior. But a second bout of celebration fell flat in Iowa's throat as the aircraft's wild smoking spin softened expertly into a violent shake and as the bomber closed, a large black shape fell from beneath it into the water. Throwing a forboding long wake into the water towards Iowa.
Cursing bitterly Iowa slammed her engines into full forward thrust, her screws churning up water violently behind her as the torpedo edged ever closer to her.
The back of her mind registered signal flags from the screen ships, probably from Atlanta and something regarding "incoming", but her head was filled with faries desperately calling out ever shrinking distances and a primal desire to escape, screws not yet turning fast enough to give her the speed to pull ahead.
Glancing over at the rapidly closing torpedo a rock filled her stomach and the part of her mind in charge of course and headings realized the torpedo had found its mark.
"Brace for impact!" She screamed to her bridge crew, turning her face protectively away from the projectile. The shouts of the other ships echoing warning and alerts to her and each other were distant and incomprehensible in the back of her mind.
"I'm sorry Oregon," she muttered weakly.