"What in the world are you planning, Union dog?" Jintsuu wondered, holding her hand aloft and halting fire from her fleet as Leander's smoke bisected the battlefield. Without visual confirmation of enemy positions or headings, launching more torpedoes would be a waste and a good way to inflict friendly fire. Across the sea, Andrew Thorson had no similar reservations.
"Ready?" He asked Pennsylvania, watching intently as Javelin and Indianapolis sped towards no man's land.
"Yes sir. One barrage just beyond Houston's last known position in an attempt to detonate torpedoes in transit, followed by a continuation of fire against the enemy formation's last estimated position," Penny repeated officially over the radio, ensuring every other ship knew their directive. He nodded.
"Fire when ready."
"Fire!" Penny yelled, her eyes glistening brightly as shells flew from her guns and those of her sisters in arms. Thorson watched the smoke swirl as the volley passed through it.
"Have we received any hails from the enemy?" He demanded, wondering if Shiratsuyu's gambit would pay dividends.
"Nothing as of yet, tono-sama. I am listening," Fusou promised. The Commander rested a hand on Shiratsuyu's head as Zed looked empathetically at her drooping tail.
"I'll do what I can."
"Thank you…"
"Commander?" A sleepy voice reached him over the radio. He replied to her immediately.
"Go ahead, Laffey."
"Does Commander fear Laffey?"
Thorson looked at Zed and Penny, silently mouthing if they knew what the bunny girl was talking about. He spoke to her with confusion in his voice. "No. Why would I be?"
"Because Commander has not allowed Laffey to use her full power."
Thorson recalled that moment on the beach when he and she beat back the sirens within her mind. "You mean...that weapon?"
"The enemy will be forced to shield themselves. Laffey will show Commander's fleet the way," the young woman promised, eager in her own sleepy way to flex her muscles and display her power.
"Do it, Commander. We all want to see this," Penny advised, pulling her gloves down her hands and flexing her fingers. "Hold nothing back from them."
"Can you avoid Javelin, Indianapolis, and the others?" Thorson demanded.
"Laffey would never hurt her friends," she promised. Thorson took a deep breath, his heart pounding as he wondered about the fool who had opened Pandora's Box. He radioed a warning ahead to Javelin and Indianapolis. The heavy cruiser threw on a pair of shades in response as she floated over the choppy seas.
"This should be fun," she whispered as Javelin turned around to skate backward, eager for her friend's debut.
Thorson steeled himself. "Laffey...activate annihilation mode."
Back across the water, Jintsuu's face was contorted into a frown. Smoke was a tool of the Royal Navy and Ironbloods, not meant for honorable warriors. To see it in her theater from a Union fleet was alarming. The follow up shells had been fired intentionally short, striking a handful of her force's torpedoes and sending towering columns of water skyward. She wished her air escorts had survived. "What reason could you have to…" Jintsuu trailed off, her ears perking and swiveling. Something wasn't right. She gazed out over the battlefield as her sister Naka radioed in.
"Onee-san, something is coming! I can sense it!"
At that moment Jintsuu saw it, watched as the enemy smokescreen glowed bright red and gold like a dragon of yore. "All ships take evasive action! Shields to full!" She yelled, watching in horror as a barrage of plasma shot through the smokescreen and towards the left side of her formation. Naka shrieked in pain as her shields flared, but she was on the edge of the attack and survived with some structural damage. The Tokitsukaze and Harusame were not so fortunate.
The two destroyers we caught dead on in the blast and vaporized, nothing but open ocean remaining in their place once the glow of Laffey's attack had disappeared. For the first time in the face of the enemy, Jintsuu felt true fear. Her foes possessed siren tech, and had used the smokescreen to move closer while relatively safe from torpedoes. The godlike attack had sliced a gaping hole through the barrier and snuffed out hundreds of lives in an instant. Dozens of large caliber turrets stared her down, more than capable of directing fire towards the location of Naka's recently dissipated shield.
"Suddenly Yukikaze does not feel so lucky," the destroyer commented nervously, having barely cleared the blast radius after her attack on the Houston.
"Do you think that was really her? Do you think that was Shiratsuyu?" Yuudachi demanded, trying to decide if they were facing a human fleet or a squadron of devils.
"Remain focused or we will all perish!" Jintsuu ordered. "Rely on your torpedoes for offense! We must withstand this next attack! They draw closer with each moment!"
Within the smoke, Javelin was frantic. She had shouted her congratulations to Laffey, but even with the smoke clearing Jupiter was nowhere to be found. Indianapolis had already vanished to her left, moving in search of the sunken Union cruiser. "Sister please...please be alright!"
"Javelin, I have Houston," Indy reported as the next volley from Thorson's fleet sailed overhead and slammed into the Naka, crippling her. "She says she knows Jupiter's location."
Javelin was there in a flash, willing her cubes to force her across the surface. The soft glow of Houston's cube, floating in the water, led her to the right spot. Indy held the unconscious shipgirl in her mechanical arms. "Where?!"
"The last thing she did before passing out was to point beyond the smoke. You'll die if you go out there," Indy told her in an analytical voice. "I'm sorry."
"Knight Commander!" Javelin cried as the smokescreen lost its effectiveness. They were almost out of time. "Please!"
Aboard the Pennsylvania Thorson watched with furious pride as one of the three enemy cruisers was taken out. From the shielding he knew it was commanded by a shipgirl. In the back of his mind he hoped she was only wounded, but other matters demanded his attention. Tennessee had taken a torpedo to her bow and Pennsylvania had ceased firing to devote all power to shields. His Valkyrie was frowning, watching the small wakes coming for her. "They need to get out of there now, sir. That or we need to end this."
"Would you obey me if I told you to leave Arizona to die?" Thorson asked. At the back of the bridge Ooshio and her sisters looked on with racing pulses.
"No sir. I'd tell you to go to hell and get off my ship."
"Then we end this now," Thorson growled. "All ships fire on the second light cruiser! Take her down! Give Javelin the covering fire she needs! Laffey, status!"
"Mmmm…Laffey would like to nap with the Commander now. Annihilation mode is very tiring."
"Dear lord…Shiratsuyu, try again."
Jintsuu walked gracefully onto the deck of her ship, watching the hail of shells falling her way. A handful of them were powerful, imbued with the will of the woman who had fired them. The rest were of no concern. Her little sister had almost been killed in the last attack but she still had the advantage. The enemy was approaching their destruction. She just needed to weather the storm and give her forces the opportunity to strike. She unfolded her fan and closed her eyes.
"The river of my namesake flows through me. The strongest rock will eventually wear away. The finest steel will rust. But the river shall always flow. You Union dogs will never defeat me. Warriors of the Sakura, heed not their words of deception and fear not their hellbourne gifts! So long as I stand, we shall not fall!" Jintsuu opened her eyes and brought her fan across her body once and then again, sending waves of energy skyward to slice through the shells that burned with anger. The rest she blocked, waving her fan overhead and conjuring a powerful shield and absorbing the hits. Unseen by her, a young woman sailed forth out of the smoke, snatched a tiny body from the water, and skated back towards the enemy formation, a formation that featured one extraordinarily angry Tennessee class battleship.
"You dare...you dare fuck with me like that, pretty girl!" Tennessee shouted from her own bow. She turned her hull, ensuring all her main batteries could fire on Jintsuu. "You'll pay for your arrogance! Die!" The blonde warrior grunted in pain and dropped to one knee as multiple torpedoes struck her weakened shields and large profile. Her bow was in danger of flooding.
"Tennessee, get back! Let Arizona cover for you!" Thorson demanded, watching in horror as the unassuming light cruiser shielded itself yet again and shrugged off Tennessee's barrage as well as a well-aimed shot from Warspite.
"Never, this bitch is mine! Javelin and Indianapolis are still out there. We don't have time to play games with our formation. I refuse to fall here!"
"Commander, if we turn now we die. Tennessee is right. It's time to stand and fight." Penny took his hand and willed him to carry on, turning her own hull to protect her sisters and friends. "Tennessee, you aren't alone."
"Sister!" Arizona shouted, watching as Javelin and Indianapolis slipped through the slowly closing gap between the Pennsylvania and Tennessee. It was the same defensive formation they used against the sirens, expect now they faced a force of Sakura at least ten torpedo boats strong led by a commander who refused to fall in battle.
"We'll be fine, Ari," Pennsylvania replied calmly over the radio.
"I know that tone sister."
"Then do your best, little sister. It's like Andrew said. We all fight together, and we all sink together."
"You can't...I won't let you!" Arizona yelled, feeling her cubes shining within her. The man she loved and her only sister were placing themselves between her and dozens of Sakura torpedoes and shells, the enemy attack emboldened by Jintsuu's heroics. Killing the enemy meant nothing to her. Saving her loved ones meant everything. She loaded her main guns, feeling words unknown flow from her lips. "I call upon the grace of the seraphim as one who has walked the ether and returned to life, summoned forth by the man named for the First-Called. Drape us in your light and heal our wounds, I beseech you now! Eagle's Tears!"
The ships of Thorson's fleet, especially Penny, Tennessee, and Ark Royal who had taken significant battle damage, watched as Arizona's barrage lit up the skies above them. The shells rained motes of light down upon them like manna from heaven as they eventually crashed into the sea just short of the Haguro. Dented steel warped and reshaped. The cracked bow of the Tennessee was made whole. Pennsylvania's shields glowed with radiant power, and both Jupiter and Houston stirred in their rescuers' arms. Thorson and all aboard the bridge with him could only stare, his mouth agape as his joking words were made real. The power of the angels graced his fleet. "Arizona?"
"I'm here, Commander."
"Thank you." Her pleased and relieved laughter was all he needed to hear as his ships redoubled their efforts.
While Arizona's ability had given his fleet new life, it had not fundamentally changed the situation on the battlefield. Every shell fired at Jintsuu was deflected or struck from the sky, while the cunning fox's remaining ships continued to sling shells and torpedoes at his fleet. Tennessee radioed him after her second full barrage had been swatted into the sea. Her voice was dripping with frustration.
"Commander, I don't need to be here just to keep my hull in place and my shields up. Let me fight her!"
"Tennessee, are you insane?" Pennsylvania shot back instead.
"Hardly, Penny. You think gunnery crews are trained to hit a target the size of a woman?"
"And the enemy vessels crewed by shipgirls?" Thorson pressed.
"You've seen it yourself, Commander. She may be a coward, but she's got an incredibly strong defense."
"And you think you can break it yourself?"
"Commander, any punch of sufficient strength will break the bones used to block it. Let me go!"
"I'll go too, Commander! Please?!" Downes suddenly cut in. "I've been training with her since we left! Let us go and we can end this battle, bring you home a nice little trophy!"
Silence pervaded the radio as Thorson pondered the seemingly absurd request. Eventually he nodded, having been watching the movements of the Yuudachi and Yukikaze throughout the battle. "Tennessee, Downes, get in there and take her down. All ships continue firing at the flagship until the two of them get into range. Shiratsuyu?"
"Hai, Shikikan?"
"You have rigging now, sweetie. Get out on deck or in the water. Show them you're alive and well. Hell, take a plate of sandwiches with you if you think it'll help. Just get those two destroyers focused on you."
"I…I…yes of course! Thank you, Shikikan!" Shiratsuyu replied after taking a moment to bolster her courage. She closed her eyes and held her fists just under her chin as her rigging popped into existence. It was a simple thing, just a single quad torpedo mount, a 12.7 cm battery, and a small boiler on her back, but it was enough. "I found some excellent cuts of beef in Surabaya. If you'll excuse me!" She cried, sprinting from the bridge as Zed looked after her.
"One day your time will come, Zed. For now, let's see how this unfolds," Thorson advised. Tennessee and Downes had already gleefully leaped over the railings of their ships and into the ocean, speeding forward over the battlefield towards the Jintsuu. Aboard the enemy flagship, the foxy tactician was panting heavily.
"They should be dead," she lamented, continuing to play defense and pray for her fleet to score a kill or two, anything to change the momentum of the battle that had rested with the enemy ever since they'd deployed their siren weapon and healing powers. "Well now this...this is new."
"Yo bitch, get down here and try to block one of my punches instead!" A Union shipgirl yelled at her, sporting large and intimidating battleship rigging and floating next to a slim girl who appeared to be a destroyer. Both looked far too happy to be skating backward just in front of her bow, having easily slipped past her fleet's torpedoes and shells. In their current position only her smallest caliber AA guns would have any chance of striking them given the necessary gun depression. That being said, she had a warship and they did not.
"I don't think I will," she replied, choosing to ignore the strange gesture from the Union and continue the fight. Down on the ocean Tennessee's face contorted into a furious frown, but Downes tapped her shoulder.
"Belle, all we gotta do is force her down. I'll take the right, you take the left. Let's blow shit up, woop woop!" And so Downes took off towards the crippled Naka and her half of the formation, speeding around and generally aiming to be a nuisance. She snuck behind ships and fired torpedoes into their steering gears. She sent shells onto deck to shatter glass and destroy small gun emplacements. Every so often she would spot welding and pepper the area with fire, on occasion causing leakage in various hull sections. Tennessee caught on quickly, using her far larger guns to rain suppressive fire onto the decks of Jintsuu's manned ships, forcing crew from their stations. Neither Union shipgirl would win the battle on her own, but their actions demanded a response, one only Jintsuu could give.
"This is Jintsuu to the Haguro. Captain, take command of the fleet actions. I will deal with these pests," she swore, gracefully stepping from her deck and floating down onto the water. She had but a moment to prepare before Tennessee was on her.
"Dodge this!"
Jintsuu did just that, her long blue sleeves and short white skirt flowing and rippling like her namesake as she sidestepped, dodged, or redirected Tennessee's kicks and punches. The Union battleship was laughing, a destructive fire in her eyes.
"How long do you think you can keep this up, Sakura?"
"As long as I need to," Jintsuu promised, internally dismayed that her opponent seemed to be untiring, her twentieth blow still as strong as the first. She had to go on offense. "Take this!"
Tennessee hit the ocean as Jintsuu swiped at her with her fan. The object was clearly made of sterner stuff than wood and paper, as Tennessee's jacket was cut loose from her body along with a bit of her flaxen hair. "Oh now you've done it," the battleship growled menacingly. "I liked that jacket."
Aboard the Naka, Jintsuu's younger, red haired sister watched helplessly as her sister was subjected to both cannon fire and punches from a crazed Union battleship. It was a fight unlike any she'd ever seen, a mixture of martial arts, brute strength, and firepower. With her own ship crippled and useless she made her decision, getting into the water herself and heading for the scrum. She shrieked as a small torpedo cut in front of her path, throwing up a shield just in time to block a shot from Downes' rigging. A slim Union girl in an oversized white shirt wagged a finger at her.
"Ah ah ah, sorry bun bun. Can't have you going that way."
"I'm not a bunny, I'm a fox!" She protested. Downes cocked her head and shrugged.
"Could have fooled me. Guess it doesn't matter. You and I are gonna fight it out while my Commander destroys the rest of your fleet. Now let's have some fun!"
Naka couldn't help but feel shock at such an attitude but she readied herself nevertheless, chucking torpedoes and a couple of shells at Downes. The girl sidestepped or blocked them and was in hand to hand range a moment later, lashing out with strong punches that belied her slim frame. Behind them, the Haguro was doing its best to keep fire on the rest of Thorson's fleet, but without Jintsuu or Naka the crew were outnumbered, outgunned, and taking casualties.
Jintsuu grunted in pain as she used her fan to block a punch from Tennessee. Her attacker had lost one of her four rigging turrets to damage and her face and limbs were bleeding from shallow fan wounds, but she just kept coming like a rabid animal. The woman continued to taunt her between deep breaths.
"You'll pay for what you did to us, all of you! Now fall to me and maybe I'll make you tail into a new coat. I rather like that fur collar you've got there!"
Jintsuu did not deem her enemy worthy of a reply, but events on the periphery of her vision suddenly demanded her attention. The scrap between Naka and Downes had not gone well for the already injured cruiser, but she was holding her own, landing hits whenever the destroyer got sloppy or too close. Downes was strong, healthy, and well-conditioned, but Naka was a trained martial artist who made her pay for each mistake. That was until Downes decided that enough was enough, spying something floating nearby that would prove her salvation.
"Hang on a tick, foxy! Be right back!" Downes laughed, dodging fire as she skated over to Houston's floating wisdom cube and plucked it from the water. Power in hand, she tore back towards Naka, firing all her armaments as blood dripped from a wound on her nose. "I lost my arm, leg, and eye when you losers tried to end the war with a single sneak attack. My sister and I were baptized in flames. There's a man back in that fleet who rebuilt me, gave me a second chance. He's watching me right now, I know he is. If you think I'm going to lose to someone like you here and now, you're wrong! Sorry Houston, but I need to kick this girl's ass more than you need your ship back! So give me your power, now!"
As Downes leapt from the ocean, preparing for an overhead strike, the cube responded to her demands and her recently strengthened body, suffusing her with light and power. Her limbs and torso grew, morphing her body from that of a teenage girl to that of a young, athletic woman. Her rigging shimmered, resolving into weapons platforms on either side of her waist that featured a quad torpedo launcher, a 127mm gun, and two shark-like fins each. Her boiler was gone, leaving her more agile than before as her leggings and panties changed from white and red to black. To top it all off she acquired a loose fitting jacket over her shoulders like her mentor, Tennessee. The outer garment was connected by a couple of leather straps to a choker around her neck in the same motif of black leather and metal. Naka could only bring up her defenses in shock as the heterochromatic girl with red streaks in her hair descended on her like a thunderbolt.
"Naka!" Jintsuu shouted as her sister's rigging deactivated and she slumped down onto the water's surface.
"Last mistake," Tennessee growled, delivering a punishing blow through Jintsuu's guard directly to her stomach. The Sakura commander doubled over in pain only to be thrown backwards by several shells from Tennessee's guns. "This battle is over."
"Oh yes. I agree on that point, soldier of the Union," a deep, silken voice rang out over the battlefield. Every gun fell silent as a handful of Sakura destroyers burned or sunk. Jintsuu managed to gasp through the pain.
"K-Kaga-sama?"
"How ironic, Jintsuu. Always so reliant on your brilliant mind you neglected to consider the fact that one day you might face someone insane enough to waltz up to your ship and punch you in the gut. Union battleship...I think I remember you actually. You and that exceptional destroyer. Both of you should have died at Pearl Harbor but look how you've grown! Allow me to finish what I started those months ago." Kaga's laughter rang out as the battlefield descended into chaos, swarms of aircraft diving through the clouds to attack Thorson's fleet. The Commander called out over the radio.
"Downes, Tennessee, return immediately! We are leaving!" He shouted, recognizing in an instant that the situation had become untenable. He didn't even have a visual on the enemy carrier. Near the Jintsuu, Tennessee looked skyward as a squad of zeroes descended towards her and her fallen opponent.
"The strong survive and the weak die," Kaga taunted. "Both of you will be found lacking. Haguro, consider yourself the new leader of this fleet."
"Cocky little wench. Must be a defining trait of you Sakura," Tennessee declared as she judged the aircraft on approach. "Guess today's your lucky day, little fox. I don't much feel like dying, and certainly not to her." Fueled by the purity of her victory and unadulterated rage, Tennessee knelt protectively over Jintsuu and brought her turrets above them, forming a shield the deflected the machine gun fire of the strafing aircraft. "Commander Thorson is all about that surrender or die thing, but no time for negotiations!"
"What do you…wait!" Jintsuu screamed as Tennessee forced her to her hands and knees, directed one of her batteries at the base of her neck, and fired point blank, reaching into the wound and ripping Jintsuu's shard from her body. The Sakura screamed and wailed like a banshee as every nerve in her body burned as if set ablaze before crumpling into a twitching heap at Tennessee's feet.
"The Commander will decide your fate. Short stuff, we're leaving!"
"Excuse me, Belle! As you can see I'm not exactly short anymore!" Downes shouted back as she and Naka hid from Kaga's aircraft up against the listing hull of the Naka. It was minutes away from finally sinking. "That was your sister, right?" The destroyer asked.
"I...yes," Naka whispered as the signature scream of zeroes filled the air around them.
"Then listen to me. Fusou, Michishio, Ooshio, and all the rest are part of my fleet. I don't know how they do it, but they can heal her. We did it with Michishio. This was a good brawl, honest. I'd like to fight you again. But right now the way I see it you have three choices. You can stay here and get killed by your own psychopathic carrier, I can do to you what Tennessee did to your sister...nasty bit of work but that's Belle for you, or you can flee with me and cast your lot in with Thorson. He's a good man, has a ton of Sakura serving with us."
"How can that be?" Naka gasped.
"Don't have time for this foxy. Look at my leg. You see that scar? If he rebuilt me, having your kind fight for him is nothing. Hell, Fusou's literally right over there! Look and make you choice!"
"I can't form shields," Naka said shamefully.
"Can you move?" Downes retorted, calling on her new power to form a shimmering bubble around them. Naka nodded as it faded away. "Then it's time to move. Commander, hope you've got room on Penny's ship for one more!"
For Yuudachi and Yukikaze, the day's battle had felt like an underwater blur ever since Shiratsuyu's voice called to them over the radio. Now Kaga was there, somehow, raining death down on anyone she deemed unworthy. The enemy fleet was in full retreat, barely managing to fight off the aircraft as squad after squad of Fulmars barely made it off the runway of their antiquated carrier before being torn to shreds by Kaga's fighters. A bomb dropped and detonated on its deck and no more planes were launched.
"Yuki! Yuu! Please come with me!" The voice kept pleading on the radio. Nothing made sense to them anymore. They barely noticed as two Union shipgirls sped past them, one carrying Jintsuu over her shoulder and the other pulling Naka along by the hand. "I'm making ribs tonight!"
"Yuki, ribs!" Yuudachi exclaimed.
"Yuu, we have no idea if it's...by the gods...look! Between those two battleships in the rear of the formation! Shiratsuyu is that really you?! Wave your left hand if you can hear me!"
The tiny figure among the Union and Royal ships did just that. Yukikaze gasped and radioed Yuudachi. "We have to save her!"
"You will pursue the enemy and sink them," the captain of the Haguro commanded, knowing Lady Kaga was watching them all.
"But they said she was dead!" Yuudachi cried, her breasts almost slipping out of her tiny top as she ran out onto deck. "She's right there!"
"Foolish little girls!" Kaga yelled, strafing the two destroyers as a warning. "She died the moment she surrendered to the enemy."
"Yuu! I'm making them with soy sauce and mirin! I have to go soon! Please! Save yourself or come with me! He'll kill you if you try to stop him! Run!" Shiratsuyu shouted desperately.
And so Yuudachi was given a choice, honor and her nation or meat and her sister.
"Rrrr…RRRRRR!" She growled, tearing at her ashen hair with her pink and blue nails. "Save some for me nee-saaaaaan!"
"Hmph, how disappointingly predictable," Kaga remarked, seeing everything from on high thanks to her planes. She detached a squad of Aichi dive bombers. "Traitors will meet the same fate as the weak."
"Yuudachi! I'm coming with you! Get ready!" Yukikaze shouted, her faith shattered over the course of that fateful battle at Java Sea. "Kaga is coming!"
True to her reputation, Kaga's strike was true. Three bombs landed square on the Yuudachi, the ship consumed in explosions as the leader of the Sakura delivered her sentence to traitors. Fortunately for Yuudachi, Yukikaze was there at her side, and the scantily clad dog morph was able to take a running start and make a critical leap from her burning deck. She tucked and rolled onto the Yukikaze, jumping to her feet with a happy jiggle of her breasts, comically large on her small frame. "Take that you kitsune whore! Amagi would never serve the sirens!"
"Shine!" Kaga screamed in her native tongue, sending another strike at the second destroyer who dared defy her. Flak from the Downes and Tennessee was coming in full force now, the shipgirls having delivered their prisoners to the Pennsylvania and re-established themselves aboard their vessels. Cleveland was in full anti air mode, directing her sisters in battle while humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic under her breath.
"You shall not touch me, Kaga. You may be the strongest among us but I am Yukikaze of Kure, the snowy wind! Your strikes will find naught but air. Hey, Union Shikikan! Make some space for the great Yukikaze would you! Your boats are too fat for me to grace you with my divine presence!"
"Aww, she sounds very cute," Arizona stated happily, focusing her AA guns on Kaga's aircraft and relishing the chance to get back at the carrier who had attacked Pearl Harbor. "Can we keep them, Commander?"
"Yukikaze the Great is not a pet!"
"Wan~!" Yuudachi barked.
"Yuudachi!"
"Arizona, thank you for your kind soul," Fusou replied, her fingers still tingling with the Union battleship's healing touch. "Tono-sama, it is the ones Shiratsuyu spoke of. Please allow them shelter. You saw the airstrikes against them."
Thorson nodded, watching with inner despondency and fury as his fleet fled past Surabaya, harried by fire from the remaining Sakura ships and Kaga's aircraft. He still had no idea if Ark would ever fight again, but she was at least moving. He snatched up the radio as Ooshio hugged him gently, the young shrine maiden doing the only thing she could think of in that harrowing moment where one ship had taken Thorson's victory and crushed it in her fist. In an extraordinary testament to Ooshio's gentleness, Zed did not shy away from his side, instead nodding in silent thanks to the Sakura maiden and taking his hand in hers. She felt helpless.
"Sakura ship approaching my formation, you will keep your shields and engines active but silence your guns. If your torpedo tubes so much as twitch, every secondary gun in my fleet will send you to the bottom. Get in here and report to Cleveland for anti-air duties. Thorson out."
"But what about the meat?!" Yuudachi cried.
"You'll eat if we survive! Warspite, what's the status of the Exeter?!" Thorson's heart sank further as the Royal commander's strained voice reached him.
"She told me she would never be able to keep up in open water with her injuries. She, the Perth, and her escorts have vowed to defend Surabaya to the last man in Rear Admiral Doorman's memory. She said…" Warspite wiped her tears on her sleeve as yet another of her good friends was lost to the chaos of war. "She said that if the Force wills it, we will meet again."
"I'm sorry." Thorson whispered the only words he could, watching everything he'd worked for crumble to ash as they fled for Bali and the Badung Strait. Kaga had broken off her pursuit, directing her aircraft to soften Surabaya's defenses and assist in the ground landings on Java. Thorson had been unable to sink a single transport. Admiral Doorman was dead. The ABDA was smashed to pieces, and the Malay barrier had fallen. The Sakura would take the Dutch East Indies. The six destroyers and two light cruisers he'd acquired, most of whom still saw him as an enemy, seemed a pittance in comparison. The shipgirls around him stepped back as Thorson dropped to one knee and leaned his head against the cold metal of Penny's bridge equipment. "All ships, head south through the strait and make for the Solomon Sea. We'll head east and then back north to home. Remain at full combat alert," he ordered in a bitter voice.
Pennsylvania looked down at him with sorrow and affection wrapping around her heart. It was difficult watching him act as they all felt. Her cubes despaired as defeat had come to Azur Lane. "Yes, Commander."
As night fell over the Java Sea, Kaga walked out onto the top of her triple decks, watching her victorious squadrons return to the flight deck. She was breathing heavily; exhausted from both the battle and her brute forcing of the siren technology of the sanctuary, but victory was sweet indeed. The Haguro would be more than capable of holding down the area as the invasion proceeded. When her final Nakajima torpedo bomber landed, she closed her eyes and felt the warm, humid air leave her as she returned to her physical body. With a triumphant smile she forced open the door to her pod and walked right up to Tester.
"Inconceivable!" The siren's proclamation rang through the silent Hall of Sculptures.
Kaga's smile turned into a feral snarl, accentuated by her bold, red eye shadow. "How does it feel to be used, alien?"