The two carriers of The Crossroads Fleet charted a course across the tabletop, Trinitite's sisters approaching the threat bearing down on them. The screen of ships supporting was bolstered by an additional ship: the Ha-class she'd painted, but hadn't planned on using. This game the unknown destroyer was a lease from another fleet, or something.
They were going to need the Akizuki-base's long-lance torpedoes, because bearing down on them were some of the most famous ships of the US Navy.
Alex's fleet was smaller than her own. Intrepid, Wisconsin, Little Rock, Young, Kennedy- all of these were technically impressive warships already, and thus points-heavy, but on top of their capabilities they also each had an ability separate from their sisters. This drove their point cost even higher, the value of Alex's fleet easily outstripping Trinitite's despite their identical size and similar composition.
This was why the submarine Trench wouldn't be a threat in this battle, and Trinitite had attached the Ha-class to her fleet to ensure Alex only had to drop one ship from his. Of all the ships her opponent could have left off the table, the submarine was probably the best for her- she still wasn't entirely sure how subhunting worked in these rules- but that didn't mean she was looking at an easy battle.
These abilities… She'd seen the same idea in Warhammer, used to model a hero's exceptional skills or otherworldly powers, and some of the modern units in Dustin's armada had abilities to represent the advanced human technology aboard them, but on ships technically identical to her own the special abilities seemed… strange.
The idea that the human ships had some intangible something that elevated them above their white skinned counterparts bothered her. Sure, Trinitite would admit without any shame that she would lose a one-on-one battle with Intrepid, but she found it hard to believe that any human-aligned carriers surpassed the Wos of The Crossroads Fleet in convoy defense. They didn't have to deal with the lurking, Fire-touched horrors that modern submarines had become, after all.
On top of the unique abilities The Abyssal had to keep track of, Alex's fleet felt like it posed a much greater threat to Trinitite than her last enemy. Dustin's swarm of Tu-22s could only really use one tactic, but the threat Alex's fleet posed was significantly more diverse. Intrepid's aircraft seemed like a non issue- Firestorm and Hypocenter should bully her planes out of the sky easily enough- but Wisconsin...
Nine 16-inch guns could probably sink any one of her ships in one round.
On top of it all, every ship was bristling with 5-inch/38s, meaning a direct attack with aircraft would probably spell a useless end for her sisters' air wing. Hopefully Alex was still thinking in 40k terms and spread his forces out a little to cover the battlefield, but the Wo-class knew that she could never rely on her opponent to make a mistake. She'd hoped a different game type would force Alex to split his fleet, but he wanted to keep his first game simple, so the victory condition was just a straightforward deathmatch.
She'd have to contrive a way to break up Alex's fleet herself. The weather effects Trinitite could choose from didn't seem like they'd help much either, but Trinitite still had to select one.
'Choppy seas' would hopefully do. It limited the speed of her own destroyers, but if Alex kept his fleet to the speed of his own it would buy the aircraft carrier some time, and Trinitite knew that keeping her fleet together wasn't a winning strategy anyways.
Alex took the news with an uncharacteristic stoicism, calculations playing behind his eyes as he contemplated the change of rules.
"I guess we start deploying then, huh?"
"I guess." Alex agreed, his gaze still focused on the table in front of him.
Having played before, Trinitite elected to set her fleet out first. Her plan had to look as conventional as possible, so she tightly grouped her ships in the center of her side of the table. Alex followed suit, his fleet gathered together opposite of The Abyssal's.
Alex won initiative, his lead destroyers slowing their acceleration to only two inches as the American fleet stayed in formation.
Excellent.
Ignoring her screaming instincts to keep her own fleet together, Trinitite directed her own fleet to explode outward. Firestorm heeled sharp to port, Hypocenter and Ames to starboard, while the three destroyers abandoned their escort duties and charged The American fleet.
"Oh." Alex stated as the Wo-class placed another momentum marker down, a hand reaching up to scratch the tiny hairs that sprouted from his jawline. "That complicates things…"
It was a full minute before he made another move, Trinitite's friend sorting out what he'd learned of the game from the reality playing out on the table in front of him. When he finally did make his move, Alex's destroyers shook themselves of their escorts, answering the challenge the abyssal destroyers had offered. At the same time, Intrepid, Wisconsin, and Little Rock set an intercept course for Hypocenter, leaving her sister with practically half of the table to herself. Trinitite needed to save her destroyers for the capitol ships, so she declined the engagement, running her extended destroyer screen in parallel with the American ships and hoping the Ha-Class's longer-range guns could beat them off.
That's when the first blunder of the day occurred. Hellcats from Intrepid's air wing suddenly darted across the battle lines, flying over the abyssal destroyers to eliminate a spotting aircraft CFS Ames had launched. Now, as the air combat phase rolled into the attack phase, the twenty fighters sat within range of all of her escorts.
"I guess this makes the air war a little simpler." The Wo-class commented, the handful of dice that would blot out the exposed fighter squadron rattling in her hand. "Thank you."
"Oh!" Alex blurted, covering his face as his squadron of hellcats disintegrated. "I really should have thought about that." His gaze trailed over to the forming mass of bombers Trinitite was forming behind her destroyer screen. "...really could have used those later."
"It's just a learning experience…" Trinitite reassured her friend and opponent, before trailing off as Alex scooped up his own handful of dice. "...What's that?"
"Wisconsin's attacking, uh, that one." He stated, pointing towards the Ha-class. How did the battleship get spotting… Trinitite's rangefinders snapped to the enemy spotting aircraft loitering over Alex's destroyer screen! "...that's two hits."
"Ergh." Trinitite grimaced, rolling on the damage table. "How much power?"
"14"
She looked at her roll, then to the table.
"That's a cascading failure. I'm supposed to roll two more times, but she's already dead."
"Oh." Alex's mood abruptly lifted. "That's that, then."
"For her, maybe." The abyssal joked. In a way, she was relieved. The Ha-class was arguably the most capable surface combatant in Trinitite's force, and those powerful long lances would be going down with her, but the abyssal couldn't help but be thankful those 16-inch shells weren't crashing down on Groves or Robbins.
Alex won initiative for the next round, his fleet closing further to leave Hypocenter with barely a sixth of the table to sail in. Trinitite was running out of time, and like it or not the surface engagement she was attempting to avoid had truly started. Unwilling to abandon her sister, Trinitite reasoned, Firestorm hooked north to bring her 8" guns into play, but it was clear the engagement was running away from her far too quickly. The destroyers slowed to bring the incoming capital ships, now accelerating past the reduced speed of their own hindered destroyer screen, into the range of their torpedoes. Ships didn't actually sink until the damage control phase, so there was a guarantee her fleetmates would get their torpedoes off, at least.
She'd been saving her aircraft for the enemy's capital ships, but that might have been her inexperience with pitched sea battles influencing her. Yes, Wisconsin was a threat, but those three destroyers both outnumbered and outgunned her own. Trinitite would just have to hope that enough planes would survive to pose a credible threat to the capitol ships afterwards. One of her squadrons of hellcats fell upon Alex's, while a squadron of bombers fell upon each of Alex's destroyers. Their excellent suite of anti-aircraft weapons blotted out a third of the descending abyssal bombers, but with 60 aircraft descending on them all three destroyers fell apart among the descending hail of 2000-pound bombs.
She could vividly picture the descending aircraft, weaving between tracers and malevolent dark bursts as the defenders desperately fought for survival. Trinitite had dealt with many an air attack, but never from that many aircraft with so few ships. She could imagine the terror and hopelessness those destroyers must have felt in their final moments, as they were overwhelmed. Knocking out three enemy destroyers was satisfying, yes, but seeing the concern on Alex's face as he placed a lethal number of damage markers alongside the ships in half of his fleet…
She wondered how combat ships could handle this kind of thing, in real life.
Trinitite shook her head. What a dumb thought, she knew how ships could handle such actions! She'd attempted these exact same tactics during her defense of Bikini, although to much less success. Her fleet here was fighting for their hypothetical lives, and that just became much easier.
Besides, Alex got his revenge during the combat turn. Wisconsin's guns failed to hit CFS Groves, but her secondary battery avenged USS Cassin Young by completely removing a squadron of Helldivers from the table and Intrepid and Little Rock collaborated to relieve Firestorm of her Dauntless bombers.
Winning her next turn's initiative, Trinitite guided the two destroyers away from the massive battleship. Her only hope now was smoke, and the Tiny Tim anti-ship rockets slung to her fighters. An attempted rocket attack on the Iowa-class cost Trinitite a squadron of Hellcats, only to light a few easily controllable fires on the battleship. The two I-class's torpedo attack jammed Wisconsin's rudder and brought flooding to both capital ships, but in the damage control phase Alex rolled well enough to counter some of the worst of the damage, while Trinitite's own roll exasperated the flooding USS Little Rock had introduced to Ames. The two cruisers continued to trade shells, fires blooming across the American cruiser's deck while her abyssal counterpart took hit after devastating hit under the waterline. Both had to be removed from the table at the same time.
"Oof, don't like that roll" Alex observed, wincing as flooding and fire spread across Wisconsin. He wordlessly scooped the damage control die and rolled again, removing a flooding marker instead of following the catastrophic results he'd just mentioned.
"You can just reroll?" Trinitite asked, confused. Alex couldn't be cheating- at least, not this poorly.
"Er- once per turn." He clarified. "It's the American special ability."
"Really?" Her fleet was good at damage control, too! The fact that she was still alive was proof of that. Why did they force her to mess with this weather stuff instead of an actual ability her fleet would have?
"Yeah, damage control's a really big thing in The Navy." A third voice abruptly chimed in. The Wo-Class jumped at the interjection, looking over to see Dustin's wiry form lounging next to the battle. "The Japanese thought they'd sunk Enterprise six times in the last war, but never did."
"Six times?" She echoed, before a more pressing question came to her. "When did you get here?"
"Just after you." Alex's friend replied, looking up from his phone. "Played a quick game with another new guy, and now I'm waiting to joust with you." The human formed a loose finger gun and waved it at Alex.
"Are you?" Trinitite asked, meeting Alex's gaze. "I hope you like missiles..."
"Don't ruin the surprise, Sarah!"
"Ah, sorry."
It was no wonder that he'd arrived later and still finished his game before they did. His one-trick fleet of aircraft lent itself to some pretty short games.
There wasn't any sincerity in her apology, but it still mollified Dustin. She considered admitting that she'd already told Alex all about the backfire swarm, but figured that intelligence advantage wasn't hers to give up.
"Huh." Alex noted, his attention diverted from the conversation. "Looks like this game has gained some traction."
She agreed, surveying the store around her. They'd been some of the first ones in, but during their game two more humans had come in and started their own battles. The numbers weren't nearly as large as the 40k nights she'd been to, but it showed the game was gaining some interest. Were these people just as new to this as she was? There was a certain appeal to knowing that not only did she have her own experience to apply to this, but all her opponents would be just as new to this system as she was.
"Alright. Initiative, then." Alex continued, looking at his two surviving, heavily-damaged ships. "I rolled a 6."
"Oh…" Trinitite rolled. "...a two." Her rangefinders shifted over to Intrepid's squadron of Dauntless dive bombers that had been slowly ambling away from the melee towards Firestorm. She'd had a squadron of hellcats angling towards them on an intercept course, but with him winning the initiative for this round…
This was her fault for splitting the fleet apart. Firestorm took eight bombs and immediately died, but the Wo-class found the situation too ridiculous to take her sister's demise seriously. Trinitite would have a lot of trouble ordering her headstrong sister to do something that stupid…
On the other side of the table, battle lines had dissolved completely and chaos reigned. Wisconsin, with a jammed rudder and several fires, was looking to accidentally sail off the table, the enemy Essex-class was engaged in a line battle with her two remaining destroyers, and Firestorm had just gotten sunk after running away from all support and spending the entire battle trying to turn around.
CFS Groves succumbed to her damage and slipped under the waves, but all of her damage had come from Intrepid! It was… kind of funny, actually. Realistically, in a gun battle at that range, Groves would defeat an Essex like herself ten times out of ten. Unlike her earlier bomb attack, Trinitite had trouble visualizing any of this chaotic mess as anything but an exaggerated fiction, like the wars in a grimdark future she'd fought on the tabletop last night.
It was two against two, now. Wisconsin continued to helplessly draw closer to the table's edge, as CFS Robbins put round after round into Intrepid's hull, only for the American carrier to turn her anti-aircraft guns on the destroyer and sink her in one round, as well.
Deep, if only being a carrier was this easy! Intrepid probably wasn't going to survive the battle, considering how many damage, flooding, and fire markers had been stacked up behind her figure, but still, taking two destroyers down with you in a gunfight was a pretty good record.
Trinitite rolled on the damage control table, trying to save her last destroyer, before sweeping Robbins off the table and returning the I-class to her container. Taking the cardboard table, Alex made another roll for Intrepid, only to grimace and roll again.
"...It's a one again."
"The fires found something important?"
"Let's see…" Alex rolled, grimacing again. "...yeah, she's dead. 8 more damage, 4 fires, 2 flooding."
"Huh." Dustin interrupted, drawing both players' attention. Trinitite thought he had something to say about Intrepid's fate, but he was still focusing on his phone.
"What happened?" Alex asked, the Essex figure hovering over the table as he focused on his friend.
"Oh, nothing too important." Dustin dismissed apologetically. "Just a picture that shows the US has more battleships than they're admitting to."
More ships than they were admitting to? How had the human discovered that? Were there other secret ships he knew about that he wasn't supposed to? Ships like, hypothetically, converted battlecruisers? Careful to hide her excitement and with the narrow game on the tabletop almost immediately forgotten, the Wo-class prodded Dustin further.
"...What do you mean?"
"Some pictures were taken of a line of eight standard battleships off of the big island in Hawaii." He clarified, flipping his phone to show Trinitite a graining photo of ships at sea. "Since we apparently still have Standards in Taiwan and Samoa, that's at least three secret battleships."
"You think Arizona's back?" Alex asked.
"That'd be huge, if true." Dustin continued, the phone's screen reflecting off of his glasses as he held it closer to himself. "It would torpedo that conspiracy about Abyssal Princesses being traitor shipgirls."
"Would it?" Trinitite asked. Given what she knew, the Wo-class should keep quiet about the topic, but she had no idea what kind of logic the human was using here.
"Sure!" Dustin replied, "If anyone would go abyssal, it would have to be her, right?"
"I'm not sure about that." Her friend disagreed, snapping his fingers. "Arizona's death was traumatic for everyone else, but just exploding like that would probably be pretty painless."
"I hope so." Trinitite agreed, for Hypocenter and many of her late fleetmates' sakes.
"Maybe." Dustin allowed, the phone absorbing more of his attention.
"What site is that?" The Wo-class asked, certain she was failing to keep her excitement out of her voice. If this fleet could track the location of every American battleship, surely they knew about any mysterious carriers! This might be exactly the kind of opportunity Trinitite had been waiting for!
"Oh, it's called OSS Forums." The human replied, seeming to miss the nervous anticipation in the Wo-class's question. "I think that acronym stands for Open Source Sailor or something. A lot of the big social media sites censor OSINT on shipgirls, so unless you want to hop on 4chan this is your best bet on the unannounced stuff."
"Open Source Sailor…" She echoed, adding it alongside 'OSINT' and 'fourchan' to her research list. "Thank you."
Those topics weren't going to wait until tonight. Trinitite was looking into this as soon as this game with Alex had wrapped up.
"No problem." Dustin replied, and the Wo-class turned her attention back to the battle.
It was one versus one now. Hypocenter, unscathed but with a scattered and depleted air wing, against a burning and slightly wounded Wisconsin, who'd just repaired her rudder.
Trinitite was feeling a lot better about her odds then she did a moment ago.
And there we go! I had been planning on this chapter for quite a while, especially considering the plot developments I've planned for the end, but I'm not as sure it turned out how I wanted it to. Still think it did its job well enough in the story, at least, but... eh, I'll leave final judgement up to you.
Anyways, some people were asking for a set of rules for VoR, and I will say I utilized my change-of-command leave pretty well in flushing something out, but as expected that something is a broken mess. Expect further developments in the future, and maybe even some rough rules, even though I don't think storywise the game will ever take as much of a spotlight as it did in this chapter.
