Trinitite had to admit: Swimming with her rigging stowed never would have occurred to her. She'd seen the Crossroads Fleet's submarines swim, of course, but the thought that she could as well, never really occurred to her. She was an Aircraft Carrier. They don't do that.

She knew it was necessary, but if she had truly understood what the process was like, Trinitite doubted she could have summoned the will to do it. Coordinating her kicks and strokes to actually produce forward momentum proved more difficult than she thought, and while the ocean's waves and her natural temperature prevented her from being too visible from above, the waves that she could normally ignore tossed her around like driftwood and hampered her progress even further.

Thus, Trinitite was forced dive underwater, playing submarine until her very limited air supply forced her back to the surface.

It was hellish work. Swimming came easier than she thought it would, but it was anything but enjoyable. The very idea of the ocean's embrace surrounding her completely reminded her far too much of sinking, and with water pressing in on every inch of her skin, she started to find it hard to think straight. As a result, she was forced to surface out of desperate panic almost as often as her need for air would. Then, after regaining her bearings and realizing her time above water was just aimlessly knocking her about, she would dive again, swim for as long as she could tolerate it, and suffer another panic attack. After she'd lost track of the number of times she'd repeated this process, she started feeling disconnected from this whole situation, as if the last week or so was just some protracted nightmare. If it wasn't for her quite literal internal compass she would have lost her bearings entirely.

Every time she surfaced, a the majority of her being screamed never again, that it would be so easy to call her rigging back and make more progress than she ever could like this, but she endured. The distraction the two sailors volunteered to create wasn't going to last forever, and sooner or later the task force was going to realize she was missing. They might have spotted her already, but if she waited too long a determined search would mean she could be fairly certain. However, if she squandered her opportunity by deploying early, the Navy would have that much more time to beat her into the sea.

Had it been minutes? hours? In the stress of swimming, she lost track.

She would endure this for as long as she needed to, but now that she wasn't sure it was becoming unbearable.

Screw it.

After surfacing one last time and drawing in a desperate gulp of air, Trinitite concentrated her thoughts on traveling the ocean the proper way. A sudden buoyancy lifted Trinity out of the water, a wave of power surging through her as she found herself plowing through the waves instead of getting thrown about by them.

We've replaced your superstructure equipment. New radars, new fire directors, and updated radio equipment.

A familiar weight settled upon her head, and with the expansion of her senses Trinitite found herself instinctively relaxing. Taking control of one of her previously unavailable tentacles, she reached up to her hair, brushing a strand out of her face without having to let go of her returned cane.

The elevators are still dysfunctional. That, as well as serious support for the patch we put on your deck and fixing the busted catapult, isn't going to happen without a proper drydock.

Boilers roared to life, A light cough escaping the Abyssal's lips as her engineers poured additional oil into her smoke stack. The resulting thick, white fog poured from her rigging and started pooling around her like a gathering thunderhead. She wouldn't accelerate as quickly, but with her destination lying just over the horizon, concealment was more important than speed.

The Hell Diver you wanted is stationed on the working catapult, and your secondaries are loaded.

As Trinitite had predicted, her RDF equipment sprung to life, a tingling in the back of her mind that pointed back at the enemy Task Force. Was there… three sources? Right, the Destroyers.

No matter. As her boilers hadn't generated enough smoke to totally obscure her, her secondaries that had survived thundered. 5 inch guns barked as shells hurtled towards the enemy. When they crashed into the sea barely a hundred yards astern, kicking up towers of spray that gave to more smoke, she found herself smiling. That should do for now.

The screen obscured her fire direction equipment, and using her radar to pick out the hostiles behind her would broadcast her location in the smokescreen. Thus, her first volley was the only one Trinitite planned on firing, thinking it better to push for shore at flank and focus on surviving the Navy's onslaught.

Her surviving catapult sprung as the Hell Diver rocketed off her flight deck, the bomber hugging the waves in an attempt to gain additional speed. That aircraft was her greatest advantage, but with her elevators out it was going to be the only one she could bring to this engagement.

She had experience dealing with the Navy's response. The Crossroads fleet didn't seek out human forces to fight, per-say, but it wasn't self-sufficient. When supplies were needed, her Princess would reluctantly offer the aid of her fleet, given they wouldn't be provoking the humans into using The Fire. This offer was denied by everyone the Crossroads Fleet had contacted, until a surprise response returned from Mindoro.

The Supply Depot Princess was not particularly invested in the greater war effort, beyond her contribution to it. She would insure raw material, specialized tools, and fuel got from its location to its destination intact. To her, the prospect of drawing on the powers of another fleet entirely, no matter their reputation, was irresistible.

And so, Trinitite found herself outside of her home more often than not, guarding someone else's transports as the enemy threw missiles, aircraft, and submarines at her. It was dull, stressful work, but it came with plenty of reward.

Knowing her work was keeping the Crossroads Fleet armed and fed was enough to keep Trinitite going until she could return home, loaded with new supplies for their stockpile and knowing her Mother's embrace would be well earned. Meeting other Abyssal Princesses, enduring their inane rants and witnessing the callous treatment of their children, gave her a sense of perspective that only deepened her love for her leader.

Perhaps the greatest reward for this duty, however, was experience. Dealing with the waves of the onslaught of fire humans constantly threw at her was no small task, and if Trinitite could boast in any sort of specialty, it would be in her ability to run a CAP and direct an escort screen. The battle at Bikini wasn't her first fight, just her first encounter with other surface ships.

Almost as soon as her smoke shells had landed, the enemy's first response arrived. Starboard and ahead of Trinitite, a column of spray sprouted frighteningly close to the carrier. After a moment, another joined, slightly northwest of the last, and then another. One of the fast-firing guns from the steel-hulled destroyers, then. She wouldn't enjoy getting hit by their projectiles, but she had already survived much worse. With a minor adjustment to her course, her slowly increasing acceleration, and the thickening smokescreen, the human cannon grew more and more inaccurate, until Trinitite was fairly certain she wouldn't have to worry about it.

The Carrier had just dismissed the shell splashes when two ultra-fast rockets appeared from the smoke. One passed narrowly by her starboard, it's exhaust leaving a trail on her hull, while the other slammed into her stern. The rocket detonated behind her hangar deck, the bulkhead disappearing into shrapnel.

Trinitite screamed as the supersonic shrapnel tore though her hangar deck, cutting down crew and perforating her waiting aircraft. Casualties were obscene, and her entire air wing was going to need at some repairs, but it would have been much, much worse.

If she was refueling or rearming, or if the rocket had struck any lower, and Trinitite would be bathing in the fire of her primary avgas storage. The same kind of rocket that had cratered her deck earlier would have finished her off for good. Briefly, she worried about her Hell Diver ahead of her, but since it had only exploded after it had hit her directly she doubted they were in the proper mode to threaten the bomber. She had much more to worry about, anyways.

New contacts on the RDF. Bearing's changing rapidly, they're close!

Some of their powerful anti-ship missiles, then. Moving twice as fast as a dive bomber and filled with a mass of explosives nothing but the most determined battleship could withstand, these fat rockets bore in on Abyssal fleets only a few feet above wave crests, under the majority of their anti-aircraft guns. A powerful radar set mounted in the nose blanketed the sea in front of them, constantly hunting for prey as it sped over the ocean.

Trinitite herself had witnessed three transports, two cruisers, and eight particularly unlucky destroyers bear the brunt of their massive warhead, and knew for certain that if one connected it would be the end of her. If she, by some miracle, managed to survive the hit, her fight to stay together would give the enemy destroyers plenty of time to catch up to her.

Normally, her strategy would be to place the fleet in the standard anti-aircraft formation, with one of her own aircraft laying a screen of smoke. Hopefully, the majority of them would dash into the large target, while those who weren't fooled were cut down by the fleet's volume of fire.

As the Abyssal glided through her own smoke, she kept her Air-Search radar inactive. When the enemy was more concerned with bleeding her escorts than killing her transports, their rockets would lock onto her picket's radars and follow them into the ships themselves. With the thick cloud of smoke they were dealing with, the blinded rockets should sail directly through…

Trinitite witnessed one of the fat missiles sail through the smoke, transforming from a distant blur to a rough silhouette to and back into a blur as it glided only a few feet from her hull. The carrier breathed a sigh of as her smoke obscured it once more, its powerful search radar fading as it blasted the the sea ahead of it. At one point the thing's search signal had gotten strong enough the Carrier could feel a headache developing, but it must not have detected her.

Another series of splashes appeared next to her, several shells landing in a tight cluster. That would be one of the three destroyers, then. Judging by how close they'd gotten to the carrier, it seemed their radar was tied into their fire control. Not ideal, but Trinitite but while the light guns from the three ships would cause serious damage, they wouldn't have enough time to sink her before she was safe on land. Still, the carrier altered her dash for the shore into a gentle weave. No reason to make their job easy.

Another cluster of shells landed near Trinitite, obscuring the sound of her Hell Diver as it returned. The bomber passed just aft of its mothership, a curtain of smoke descending behind it to obscure the Carrier further. She veered to port, a moment too late to avoid another volley of shells.

One of the 5 inch projectiles slammed into her deck, burrowing through the decking behind her aft elevator and into her hangar deck. The shell detonated inside her hangar, ruining several damaged aircraft, the three arresting cables on the deck above, and a good portion of her crew spaces.

Trinitite's eyes widened as reports flooded her bridge, her nearby crew scrambling to prevent the shell from doing any more damage. If she'd known a destroyer could hurt her that badly...

It was a good thing she wasn't planning on recovering that Hell Diver, because that might not be possible anymore.

Her aircraft continued to climb as another volley of fire slammed into the sea, a sure hit on Trinitite if she hadn't started more serious maneuvering.

Assuming the destroyers didn't outrun her, she could do this all day. And, given her rapidly closing distance to the shore, they wouldn't. It seemed like the fisherman's crazy plan had worked.

ping

The Abyssal froze, her boiler pressure spiking as the noise reverberated throughout her hull. They had launched torpedoes at her? Nothing launched from the task force should have gotten to her already, right? Had a submarine been tailing her? No, their destroyers could launch torpedoes, right?

Ping

Almost instinctively, she cut power to her screws and her speed started to drop. If the thing was close enough a Wo like her could hear it, there was a good chance it would get a return from the Abyssal anyways, but there was no use guiding it in with her cavitation noises.

PING

Another volley of shells bracketed the water ahead of her, but she hardly noticed. For a moment, she visualised jumping, safe in the air while the torpedoes glided below, but even if it was possible (she'd never see someone try jumping while underway) the shock of crashing back into her water might do more damage than one of the torpedoes could.

Ping

They were gliding away from her already, which meant they must have been closer than she realized. It wouldn't be a good idea, but at that moment The Carrier felt like she would trade two boilers for a proper hydrophone.

ping

Trinitite waited for another moment, and then two. Two more volleys crashed around the slowing carrier as the Abyssal waited for the torpedoes to pass outside of their hearing range.

The enemy's homing torpedoes were nasty things, as her sister Hypocenter would attest. Trinitite had almost lost her when four of the things mangled her starboard side in the Bismarck Sea. Getting her to a drydock had been one of her worst experiences she'd had, until she'd lost everyone in the final battle over her home. She didn't have the support her sister had needed to get to safety, and if one of those torpedoes had hit the Destroyers chasing her would be given plenty of time to catch up and fill her with their own fish.

Another volley of shells descended, this one finally hitting home. Two more 5-inch shells plowed into the deck, one shouldering through her thinly-armored side as the other slammed almost in the center of her crew's hasty patch job. The carrier screamed as the explosions compromised the bracing her crew had thrown together, her free hand darting to her head as half of the patch caved in on the hangar. Almost belatedly, another report came in, reporting serious damage in her workshop, with her Galley and Laundry a complete loss.

Time to get moving again.

The water behind Trinitite sprung to life as her screws re-engaged. As much as she feared the torpedoes ahead of her, she couldn't afford to keep bleeding speed.

Enemy aircraft above. One of those tiny human airplanes that doesn't seem to have a pilot.

Her Hell Diver had spotted an aircraft above. She wasn't sure if the bomber could intercept the peering enemy, but at least interrupting the spotting aircraft would-

Another salvo of shells dived into the sea, but instead of the two-to-five she'd grown accustomed to, fifteen plumes of spray rose at once. Trinitite was too shocked by the volume of fire to be sure, but they seemed larger than the the others. The enemy destroyers could shred her superstructure and crater her flight deck, but as long as Trinitite stayed outside of torpedo range they weren't a serious threat. Whatever this was? Trinitite's armor didn't feel so thick anymore.

The Wo-class was out of surprises, and the Navy just revealed one of their own…

"But PyrrhicSteel! You said last snip was going to be the last naval chapter, and then you said this one was, but it doesn't look done at all!"

You are correct, hypothetical FF reader. I did say this was the last one. However, after finishing the chapter, I found myself staring at 9 pages of text, so I decided to split things up further. The next part is done, and just needs another editing pass before I post it. You can expect it tonight or tomorrow morning. I honestly expected all I've written so far to be 4 chapters when I was planning things out, but I guess I found myself asking "how was she supposed to get to the US again?" and explaining that took a lot longer than I expected. I hope you enjoyed this, even though it wasn't what I've advertised so far.

Anyways, one of the interesting consequences of having the Navy being the antagonist is buffing steel hulls compared to other KC works starts to feel like a smart idea to a perspective author. A greater diversity in threats gives an author more tools to play with, and this snip sort of gave an overview of what those threats are to Abyssals (and how they deal with them). If I continue this past its premise or write a sequel, referencing this snippet would become pretty important.