Gneisenau, Cole and Natalie broke out of the town and made a dead sprint for the beaches. Around them, the battle was still raging. The Former SS soldiers had, at this point, dug into the debris of fallen buildings and bunkers and were suppressing the ability for Nimitz's men to retreat.
"Our boys are being held up. They can't make the stretch." Cole said as Gneisenau turned her rigging but held her fire. She wasn't going to attract attention to them when her injured sister was on Cole's back.
"Just get back to the boats and get my sister onboard. It looks like most of the boats are heading back now as is, so it's just a few men we need to worry about." Gneisenau said as she looked around and took stock of the full situation.
Tanks were abandoned and burning as the SS soldiers destroyed the tanks belonging to the members of Easy Company. German machines burned, filling the air with black smoke as the oil and fuel burned hot. The thing that surprised Gneisenau was the distinct lack of AA fire, but in addition, the lack of plane engines in the air. The carriers had turned their attention to the rapidly massing drone fleet.
"Let's move. We'll save who we can." Gneisenau said as she fired her rigging at a collapsed building, decimating the soldiers inside with a well-placed high explosive shell. As the bullets began to fly their way, Gneisenau turned to Cole.
"Get her to the boat. I'll be right behind you." Gneisenau said as Cole nodded.
Cole turned to Natalie.
"Can you keep up?" Cole asked.
Natalie looked at his legs, which were still trickling blood from his legs catching shrapnel in the tank.
"Can you even make it? Your legs are all kinds of messed up." Natalie said, ignoring her own pain from her fight with Alpha. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that Alpha was gone. She wasn't where she had been pinned to the car. Somehow she had survived her sudden and brutal immolation and had managed an escape. Natalie suppressed this slight fear as she spoke with Cole.
"I've survived worse. Let's move." Cole said passively as he took off towards the beach, making use of Gneisenau's covering fire to move without fear of being hit by enemy forces. Scharnhorst held on as tight as she could, using the majority of her strength to keep herself planted to Cole's back as he ducked from cover to cover until he hit the gravelly sand of the beach, where he took off in a sprint towards one of the last few boats that was on the beach.
"Get your asses moving! Gneisenau's got us covered!" Cole yelled as the sailors who had been taking cover behind the sea wall nodded and took off running towards the boat. Cole reached the boat first and gingerly set Scharnhorst into one of the seats onboard as he and several other sailors began the process of shoving off. Natalie jumped into the boat and sat next to Scharnhorst, making sure to keep herself between Scharnhorst and the sea wall, covering the injured Kansen with her body in the event of a sniper attack. Sure enough this turned out to be the correct option as a stray round smashed into Natalie's siren enhanced arm, denting the armor and locking the shoulder in place, making it hard for Natalie to move it.
"Are… you okay?!" Scharnhorst asked frantically. She had seen Natalie jolt and feared that she had been shot.
"I'm alright." Natalie grunted as she wretched the bullet from her shoulder and worked on forcing the arm to move, loosening the dented armor and allowing for a limited range of movement. When Scharnhorst didn't react, she centered Scharnhorst's view on her and showed her the bullet she had extracted before nodding prominently. She pointed to the dent in her shoulder and moved the limb to the extremes of her flexibility, proving to Scharnhorst that she was okay.
Scharnhorst visibly relaxed as she watched Gneisenau step onto the boat, using her shields to prevent the majority of bullets from hitting any of the men who were dragging themselves onboard.
Soon enough, the boat was back in the water and the men were all onboard, making a wake back towards the Yorktown.
"Get them to medical." Brooklyn demanded as she pointed to Van Kinsburgen and Carina, whom Kinsburgen had found during their daring escape to the carrier. As men escorted the ladies down below deck, Nimitz came out to meet Brooklyn.
"We got what we came for?" Nimitz asked as Brooklyn handed over the blueprints.
"Agir and August von Parseval. It looked like there was a third blueprint in there at one point, but it wasn't there when we checked. We also managed to destroy evidence and information pertaining to the Admiral." Brooklyn explained.
"About Isaac?" Nimitz asked.
"Yes sir. They had damn near everything you could ask for in a file brief. Name, date of birth, parents, hometown, aliases, achievements, battle strategies, fleet composition. It had everything." Brooklyn spoke.
"Shit. We will have to proceed as if the Sirens know everything about him." Nimitz said as Yorktown came out onto the flight deck.
"We should begin the retreat in earnest. The last boat was just brought aboard. Cole, Natalie and Gneisenau were onboard, as well as Scharnhorst. According to Gneisenau, Scharnhorst will need intensive care. Do we have surgeons on board, Admiral Nimitz?" Yorktown asked.
"No. All my surgeons were killed by Strength when one of her shells blasted through the citadel armor on the Missouri. Shell landed just shy of med bay and all my doctors and surgeons were killed instantly." Nimitz explained.
"Understood, then we shall steam at flank speed to get out of the region as fast as we can. Hold on, performing emergency maneuvers." Yorktown spoke as sirens blared onboard the Yorktown, followed by an automated verbal warning.
"Emergency maneuvers, brace for roll in excess of fifteen degrees. Brace. Brace. Brace." The message repeated as Yorktown threw the rudder to port as far as it would go, swinging the carrier around in direct line of sight of the enemy fleet.
Nimitz leaned against the roll, as did Brooklyn and Yorktown. Ahead of the carrier, the Gneisenau, Z2, San Diego, and Wichita all banked hard to port and began pulling away from the enemy fleet. Elbe also managed to get turned around and began steaming to catch up with Yorktown.
"Not so fast, assholes!" A shrieking voice spoke as the Yorktown was assaulted with a barrage of plasma fire.
"Inside! Now!" Yorktown spoke as she activated her rigging and turned for the stern of the carrier as Nimitz made a break for the island.
"You won't get away this time, Yorkie! You defeated me before… but not this time!" The voice spoke as the assault on Yorktown spread to the rest of the fleet, with each member of the fleet being barraged endlessly by plasma fire coming from a massive tide of rolling clouds.
Yorktown heard her island door slam and turned to see Cole and Natalie burst onto the deck, fighting the list of the ship as the Yorktown began to pull out of its turn.
"You two need to get below deck." Yorktown spoke.
Natalie shook her head.
"That has to be Purifier. Pavel told me about her. You're going to need all the help you can get." Natalie spoke.
"And what will a human do to someone like that?!" Yorktown snapped as Brooklyn ran over to Cole.
"Cole! You need to get below deck! You're injured!" Brooklyn cried.
"Not until we're safe." Cole said as he looked over to the quad bofors gun off the stern of the ship.
"Natalie, Bofors gun, we'll shoot her down if we have to." Cole said as he and Natalie took off down the flight deck towards the gun mount.
"I can use that, you know…" Yorktown spoke.
"You have planes to worry about. After all, there's still a drone fleet on our ass." Cole said as he continued running.
"I'll run interference." Brooklyn said as Yorktown watched her vessel pin itself to the starboard stern of the Yorktown, keeping the rear guns firing at the advancing drone fleet.
Yorktown shook her head as another squadron of Skypirates took off, laden with torpedoes to hopefully create some breathing room by sinking the drones. Elbe picked up on this and launched fighters to cover the torpedo planes from the aircraft coming from the drone carriers.
"Fight all you want! I'll pull you limb from limb regardless!" Purifier spoke as her rigging finally pierced the rolling clouds with her right behind it.
Yorktown's eyes narrowed. Before her stood the woman who berated her for years. Poked at her loss relentlessly. Yorktown hated Purifier. Every errant comment about Enterprise. Every joke made at Hornet's expense. Every single word the Siren spoke was another layer of hell being peeled back for Yorktown to be subjected to.
Drawing the burned sword she had taken from the corpse of her world's Zuikaku, Yorktown allowed her pent-up rage to show.
"Watch your tongue, Siren… lest it be cut from your head." Yorktown grumbled as the Siren in question began making a beeline for the carrier.
Cole and Natalie opened up with all four barrels on the quad mounted bofors with help from several AA crew members from the Missouri who kept the guns fed faster than Cole and Natalie could aim and fire.
"I can't hit her worth a damn! She moves too quickly!" Natalie spoke as she strained her eye looking through the AA sight as she and Cole moved feverishly trying to line up the shot.
"You can't hit me! You can't hit me!" Purifier spoke jovially as she effortlessly dodged the hail of 40 mm shells fired in her direction.
As Cole and Natalie were trying to get a bead on Purifier, the secondary guns on the Gneisenau opened up as well, trying to end the threat to the fleet. All the while, San Diego and the other cruisers were hammering away on the drones that kept coming from some unseen spot within the fog.
Cole and Natalie kept firing until Purifier managed to get below the depression of their mount.
"She's too close!" Cole yelled as they watched Purifier jump onto the deck of the Yorktown.
"Now… Time to kill you so that I can go back to bossing around the prisoners you so rudely stole from me." Purifier said with a smile.
"You wish you could." Yorktown spoke sharply as her bloodstained blade shone in the sun.
"You killed the cranes… I didn't think you had the stones, Yorkie. I mean… you were an absolute mess after Enterprise sunk at Midway. And Hornet… well that broke you to the core, didn't it? Not even the mighty Hornet could survive a sting like that, huh?" Purifier joked. She laughed at her own joke as Yorktown approached her slowly, tightening her grip around the handle of her blade.
"You die here, Siren." Yorktown spoke as she slashed the blade at Purifier's neck, bringing the flight deck of her rigging up to cover herself to prevent damage. This proved to be beneficial as Purifier expertly dodged the blade and used the tail of her rigging to strike at Yorktown, who managed to deflect the needle-sharp tail from piercing anything important, instead sending it flying past her midsection with only a torn coat to show for the effort.
"I've gotten better, bitch." Yorktown spoke as Cole and Natalie looked on from the edge of the flight deck. Around Yorktown and Purifier, Yorktown was still managing to launch and recover planes to slow down the enemy fleet.
"So I can see. I might actually have to take this semi-seriously." Purifier said as she aimed the cannons of her rigging at Yorktown, who drew the sword she had taken from her timeline's Shoukaku.
"Semi-serious? Don't make me laugh… not like you could. Every word you speak is the equivalent to a pig's squeal." Yorktown spat as she advanced, slashing again at Purifier as the Siren fired her rigging mounted guns. The guns missed entirely, and the plasma fizzled out against the armored island. Yorktown's blades, however, found purchase under Purifier's arm and cut a deep gash that threatened to remove the arm entirely.
With a rabid snarl, Purifier jumped back, only to be forced forward again in order to avoid being chopped to bits by the rotor on one of the Skypirates taking off.
Yorktown smiled.
"So… wish you would have kept your mouth shut?" Yorktown asked, keeping her guard up in case Purifier got squirrelly.
A sudden explosion from deep in the drone fleet drew the attention of the Siren. Yorktown capitalized on the distraction, which proved to be a mistake as Purifier delivered an overpowered kick to Yorktown's covered midsection, breaking the flight deck portion of her rigging and sending Yorktown flying into a returning Skypirate, sending it and herself careening into the island.
"Playtime is over, Yorkie. I've got bigger fish to fry." Purifier spoke as she made her way back towards the end of the flight deck.
"All drones, engage the enemy to the North. This worthless fleet is a joke." Purifier spoke in a complete change in tone from her psychotic jovial mannerisms.
A new voice came over the radio.
"Finally managed to catch your attention, Purifier? Good. Come and get me, or else I'll keep killing your forces… just like you did mine." A very Russian voice spoke.
Purifier let out an annoyed laugh.
"I'll flay open your back and pull your heart through." The Siren threatened as a hearty laugh came through on the other end.
"You have to catch me first!" The voice spoke as several more massive explosions rocked the drone fleet.
Purifier looked back at Yorktown, who was struggling to remove herself from the wreckage of the plane.
"I'll let you live for now… despite being a thorn in my backside with that little heist you pulled. But just know… I will kill you. You will die by my hand… right in front of your sisters." Purifier spoke before jumping from the flight deck and disappearing into the fog.