"The air contact's heading for our drone!"
Nashville cursed, staring at the screen in front of her. The enemy carrier had already pulled it's little teleportation trick by the time she was in the water and deploying her rigging, meaning she didn't have any time to prepare her floatplane before the shock from her own guns made such a task impossible. Instead, she'd used her device- calling the strange screen in her hands a phone bothered her- to display the feed from the drone, using the machine's camera to spot for her. If that went down, she'd have to launch her own floatplane- and doing so would mean a break in her fire that they couldn't afford right now.
The Wo-Class Carrier was closing on the shore, A wedge of billowing clouds pointing to the carrier's smoke stack. Alone, the Benfold and Nashville couldn't fire through the smokescreen- with her prewar equipment her radar wasn't nearly good enough to direct her 6-inch rifles, and Abyssal Smoke was completely opaque to the DDG's sophisticated sensors, so loosing that drone meant the Carrier was getting to shore, full stop.
She'd read up on the Wo-Class before: These massive fleet carriers were the size of some of the largest carriers launched in the war, although their actual setup varied widely. Some carried no catapults, forced to turn into the wind whenever they launched aircraft, while others carried up to two. Their secondary armament was all over the board, from enough guns to rival some cruisers to almost none at all. Their decks…
Nashville fired off another salvo, holding the phone against her breast to prevent it from being jolted out of her hand and thrown into the sea. She might have been mistaken, as the Abyssal's nature meant the feed had trouble displaying both it's humanoid and hull forms, so picking out details was difficult at best. After a followup volley from her secondaries, Nashville brought the screen back into view and confirmed her suspicions.
She was no Carrier expert, but Nashville was pretty sure no flight deck was supposed give way in it's center, slumping like an old barn into the hangar deck. Between them, the Farragut sisters sported 15 five inch guns, and their late-war radar and fire control meant they must have scored several hits, but completely collapsing the Flight Deck? The Light cruiser couldn't imagine how damage like that could happen.
Nashville's broadside thundered again, her gunners scrambling to reload her 6"/47 rifles. "Uh… Benfold, this is Nashville." The light cruiser stated, keying her radio as she watched the drone's feed.
"Nashville, this is Benfold. Go ahead."
"Benfold, I'm seeing some odd damage on the Alpha-Sierra." Nashville reported, watching the feed for her shellfall. "It's deck seems to have caved-in, can you confirm?"
Her timer clicked over the expected fifteen seconds, and the Light Cruiser scowled. Her volley must have landed in the smoke, then.
"Nashville, we can confirm the damage on the Alpha-Sierra. Looks like the Farraguts hit something important."
"Yeah. Remind me to buy them something later."
With a stutter, the drone feed abruptly cut out. Nashville sighed, holding her next volley as her flight crew rushed to a waiting floatplane. It wouldn't get in the air in time, but firing blind would be just as useless. The Abyssal was going to get away.
"Benfold, this is Nashville." The Brooklyn-class cruiser started again, turning to the distant fishing boat. The RHIB was stationed alongside the trawler, leading the rest of the Pacific Lilly's crew to be inspected aboard the Benfold. "Permission to land ashore and continue searching on foot?"
"Wait one, Nashville." The destroyer's communication's officer replied, resignation clear in his voice. "High's pursuing other options."
What, were they going to call the Army? If High was trying to keep this secret, asking the Washington National Guard to deploy didn't seem like a good way to keep a lid on things. How do you fight an Abyssal on land, anyways? Nashville knew it happened, but she never read into it.
The Abyssal's crazy gambit had worked. She might be too damaged to pose a threat to a military base or port, but the media certainly weren't going to see it that way. Unless the Navy executed a major cover-up, Nashville foresaw her first naval battle ending in a national panic.
As the Light Cruiser stewed, She could already imagine the talking heads on television summoning panels of 'experts' to tear down every decision they had made, spreading words of doom and gloom now that a single abyssal had set foot on the mainland. Even if the Abyssal failed to hurt anyone, the task force's failure would be a national disgrace, and Nashville was an embarrassment to her class and the Navy. And what if the Wo-Class did manage to evade them and complete her scheme? What was she planning, anyways?
Nothing good for us, that's for sure.
Trinitite hurt.
As the water below the Abyssal's feet gave way to sand, she couldn't help but groan.
Her boilers had been at flank for too long, and ached for a rest. Her airways were dirty from all the smoke she had been producing, and the abyssal found herself frequently racked by coughing fits. Her deck had been mangled, five-inch shells making a mockery of her ad-hoc repair work. Her hangar had taken so much damage she wasn't sure she had an air wing anymore. With the damage to her galley, Trinitite was already starting to feel hungry. A report claimed that equipment in her machine shop could be repaired, but that still meant any other repairs she needed would be delayed. As a small mercy, her superstructure hadn't been hit by anything more than shrapnel, but that just meant she had a clear view of the damage.
That was something she could worry about when she wasn't being shelled. As she scrambled up the beach, her rigging still spewing smoke, another cluster of shells slammed into the ridge in front of her. Dirt, stone and sand flew into the air as trees toppled over, tapping out an uneven rhythm as they bounced off the Wo-class's rigging. Her heels and cane dug into the sand as she ran, slowing her dash to the woods ahead to a depressingly slow stumble.
As the sand gave way to a carpet of dead wood, Trinitite found her progress slow even further. Her heels, normally great at cutting through the ocean's waves, found themselves catching on the odd branches and the Carrier had to catch herself with her cane with embarrassing frequency. By the time she was scrambling up the steep, brush-covered hill, Trinitite realized the enemy's artillery had gone silent. Apparently they didn't want to shell their own land.
As the Wo-Class dived into the forest across the road, she sent a final transmission to her hell diver and dissolved her rigging. The crew would have to bail over the forest, with the hope that Trinitite would run into them while she ventured further inland. It was a slim chance, and Trinitite hated the idea that she might never find them, but the need to get as far inland as possible trumped the need to recover a few volunteers for a suicide mission. If she was going to get on with the next part of her plan, she had to make distance from the shore, and fast.
Without realizing it, the out-of breath Abyssal started laughing. She was walking on land, in the interior of one of the most protected human nations in the world! She imagined the look on the faces of some Princesses if they realized that mere fodder like her had managed something they had been trying to do for years. She was the first Abyssal to do something like this, right? It hadn't gone to plan at all, and Trinitite had probably gotten close to death more often then she realized, but that meant the worst part was merely behind her. It had to be smooth sailing from here.
Now, where was her Princess?
Serpentine, Wo, Serpentine!
Here's the last part of the chapter, which was supposed to be one chapter, but instead ballooned into three. Now there isn't a Navy between Trinitite and Shenanigans, the real fun can start.