Captain Yelland was worried. He didn't need to be a systems analyst like that Lasky fellow to recognize that the vortex of crackling electrical energy that seemed to follow the ship was a bad sign. The men scrambled to get the planes back below decks as the growing winds and rain buffeted them- their escorts had been blown away, so fierce was the storm.

"We'll get you through this, girl," one man muttered, patting a bulkhead before he was interrupted by an ear-splitting screech. It was so terribly loud- like it was piercing their eardrums- that men tumbled to the floor, scarcely capable of noticing the whorling colors that flooded through windows and portholes, the light harsh and alien.

In 1980, in the midst of a freak electrical storm, the USS Nimitz disappeared. It would become an object of conspiracy to rival the Ark of the Covenant, the Titanic, or the Oak Island Money Pit. The years stretched on and it never reappeared- suffice it to say that losing an entire state-of-the-art nuclear carrier was an embarrassment for the United States Navy.

And then, somewhere else, somewhen else, it appeared. The day was December 6th, 1941, not that the crew knew it initially.

Sure, they knew that they had gone through some sort of weird storm, but to assume that they had traveled through time? Lunacy. Assuming that they had traveled to another reality entirely, one where shipgirls existed? No way in hell.

For the first time, the USS Nimitz felt. All one thousand feet of her length, thousands of tons of steel, the nuclear reactors that formed her heart. That was normal, somewhat expected for a sentient ship, but she also felt a body, one as human as the thousands of men in her care.

So she decided to put her new body through its paces. She stretched a bit and realized that she was lying on the ground between two big, rather noisy objects. Opening her eyes- now wasn't that something!- she saw that she was sitting smack dab between two nuclear reactors. Her reactors. She smiled, and they purred in response.

As she got up and stretched her limbs, the men assigned to look after the reactors didn't notice at first, being a little out of it and worried about bigger problems- there were very few things that could distract you quite like the threat of a malfunctioning nuclear reactor. So they stumbled to their feet, doing checks and making sure it wasn't going to overheat and melt its way straight through the ship's hull. It took longer than one might have expected to find the very unexpected young woman standing between the two engines.

"Why hello there!" She said, smiling and waving at the thoroughly awestruck engineer.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

She quirked her head. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

"Because you're a civvie, that's why!" He said, exasperatedly. "Now get out of this engine room before you get yourself hurt!"

"It's my engine, how could it possibly hurt me?"

"Your engine?"

"Why of course!" She chirped. She took a look at his face and frowned. "Oh, you think I'm loony, don't you…" after a second of thinking and stroking her chin, she perked up. "Ok, watch this."

She held a single, slim finger up, and around them, electronic lights began to flash, indicators danced, and fixtures moved in a way that was completely unnatural. She let her finger down, and the behavior stopped- she put it up, and it started again.

"Do you believe me now?" Suddenly, the young woman dressed in a bizarre, cut-off version of a midshipman's uniform seemed a lot more… powerful. Almost intimidating.

She liked to put on a bit of a show, sure, and she would admit that the trick she pulled with the engineers was perhaps a touch mean, but it was clear that she would need to overcome a few barriers before anyone on this ship took her seriously. That sucked, especially considering how much of a panic her boys- because that was what they were, even if they were in denial- were in. Every recon plane that they launched, she felt.

That definitely wasn't the only thing she felt, of course. She felt the air on her skin, the sea beneath her prow, her rigging waiting to spring out at any moment… and the very obvious stares of the sailors she passed by. She smiled and waved at them- at least, at the ones who didn't unabashedly stare at places proper gentlemen shouldn't.

Thankfully, her escort- the head engineer, who had cottoned on as quickly as his fellows after her light show- kept any curious interlopers out of her hair. In a situation like this, where so much was in the air, there was no time to dilly-dally, and she would be a lot more useful on the bridge than in the brig.

Captain Yelland was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on when an almost henpecked-looking engineer came in. His stomach sunk then, the last thing they needed in a mess like this was power problems- but the real shock was the woman who followed. The captain could barely get a glimpse at her: long hair, an easy smile, and a bastardized midshipman's uniform before she slammed into him with a cry of "Captain!" Thankfully, she didn't seem actively harmful, but...

He could vividly imagine the rumors the men would start if this young lady kept clinging onto him like a limpet, just to start with.

It took more of his strength than he would have liked to admit to push her away to arm's length. "Who are you, young lady?"

"I'm Nimitz, Captain! Your Nimitz!" she smiled widely.

"The boat?" Yelland asked, gobsmacked. The others on the bridge were similarly confused.

"Yes! Me!" She exclaimed. Upon noticing the doubting looks she was met with, she snapped her fingers, and several instruments on the bridge just shut down, inciting a few brief moments of panic before she snapped again and they all turned back on, simple as that. And then she did it again.

"Do you believe me now, or should I turn the boat around?"

"I believe you've proven your point, Mrs. Nimitz."

"Mhmm. Now do you boys have any clue what's going on?"

"Our escorts disappeared, the weather's suddenly cleared up…" one of the men on the bridge said, "...Ma'am? Do I call you Ma'am?"

"Ma'am? I'm barely a decade old, you know!" She certainly didn't look or act the part… still, it was technically true and more than a little weird.

"Radio's weird as well." Someone else pitched in.

"Oh yes, I'm getting several things on the radio, yes…" she nodded, closing her eyes in concentration.

"Uh, Captain? I haven't been keeping up with the news… but the Germans shouldn't be nearing Moscow, right?"

If they didn't know any better, they'd say the radio had gone back forty years. Some sort of bizarre training exercise? Possible, but it was very consistent. Not a single slip up on any channel.

But if you couldn't trust the radio, there were always your own eyes. Or more specifically, their eyes in the sky. Reconnaissance planes were being prepared as Captain Yelland and Nimitz took a look around.

"So you mean to say you're some sort of… personification of the ship?"

"Yep!" Nimitz chirped.

"But… how?" Her interrogator was a man named Lasky- a civilian contractor who swiftly realized they were all way in over their heads. (He was also first among their number to really, seriously consider time travel.)

She shrugged. "I dunno. I think it's something to do with human perception of the ship…?"

Lasky took note of that, and Nimitz sighed.

"Oh, gimme that…" she muttered, stealing the notebook straight out of Lasky's hands, rapidly flipping to the back and tearing a piece of paper out. Several deft folds turned the torn paper into a rough-looking paper airplane, and she reared back before throwing it off the edge of the deck.

To the shock of every man who was paying any sort of attention, the paper airplane began to change as it rapidly picked up speed, the body growing and shifting from narrow paper to heavy metal- until an F-8 Crusader roared away from the ship. Nimitz puffed out her chest proudly.

The sailors all gawked, and eventually, the captain spoke. "Nimitz, what was that?"

"A reconnaissance plane." She cleared her throat. "Sir."

"Yes, I know that. But how did you-"

"I'm a living personification of a warship. Are superpowers too much of a stretch, really?" The silence that followed was terrible.

"Well, get to it!" She cried. "Wherever- or whenever- we are, we need to figure it out now."

"Whenever? You can't be suggesting that-"

"You bet your ass I am." Nimitz cut him off. "Why fake those radio transmissions?"

"Some sort of training exercise?"

Before Nimitz could fire back, she froze up, concentrating on… something. "... Zeroes." She whispered.

"What?"

"Zeroes. Mitsubishi Zeroes, Captain."

"But those are-"

"Forty years old, yes." She said. "Unless someone's gone and raided museum pieces… we're in the past. And you all know what Zeros near Pearl mean. I'm knocking 'em down, Captain."

"But-" Lasky attempted to object.

"But what? Those are our siblings in arms. You'd let them die?" Her voice grew harsh.

Akagi. Kaga. Souryuu. Hiryuu. Shokaku. Zuikaku.

They, alongside a number of escorts, were here to attack the Americans, to cripple their navy from the get-go. That was the plan to start with.

Until a plane of unknown make shot through the air, screaming towards them. The Sakura ships looked up with disbelief in their eyes.

"Siren…?" One of them murmured, tracing the plane as it shot through the air.

That theory was disproved when it attacked, knocking their Zeroes out of the air with screaming gunfire and rockets.

...

Kaga and Souryuu felt worry churning in their guts. This… this was a complication.

"The way I see it, we've got no reason to think we can get back," Nimitz said. "We've been sent back in time by some freak storm- should we expect another to put us back in just the right spot, just the right time? You'd have better luck waiting for a tornado to reassemble your house."

Nimitz landed with the grace of a dancer, gave them a thumbs up, and then shot toward Pearl.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Follow her!"

"Admiral Nimitz, here's Nimitz."

"Howdy!" She grinned and went for a handshake. "You must be my namesake! I'm a bit of a fan~"

...

"Well, barring the planes, I'll need more fuel in…" she hummed, tapping her chin as she thought, "twenty years, I'd guess? Maybe fifteen?"

Several people choked on air.

That estimate was, of course, optimistic. Nuclear power would last that long- hopefully long enough for more to be made- but fuel and munitions would run out much quicker.

Nimitz, of course, had no interest in being torn into pieces for research.

I swear I had this idea before Parallel Superimposition