CFS Trinitite had always hated the sun. It reminded the carrier of her time spent outside of The Princess's protective haze, where she couldn't trust nearby fleets and the threat of raiders bore down on her. She missed the fog that took the edge off the sunlight, filtering out the worst of its' rays and tickling her skin as a reminder of home.
Except she was home. When the enemy had done that… thing to Her Princess, the blinding light had scoured Bikini atoll of its protective haze. Now, the sun's rays beat down on Trinitite's hull, irritating the burns on her deck even further. Seeing the entire bay- along with the remains of its defenses and fleet- certainly didn't make things better.
…Perhaps she should drop the CFS prefix.
While making her way into the former resort that had become the Crossroad Fleet's ground facilities, Trinitite stumbled upon her sister. The lifeless eyes of her CFS Hypocenter peered past her, while a look of faint shock had been frozen onto her face. Whatever had tossed her onto land must have thrown her headgear elsewhere, while large portions of her hull seemed to be missing. Some kind of magazine detonation, then. As Trinitite carefully stepped around her sister's corpse, she wondered if she'd shared her late sister's expression when the human rocket had struck her.
The enemy had practically ignored the base on Bikini island, leaving even the obvious abyssal modifications in pristine condition. That meant Trinitite would have plenty of fuel to go… somewhere. The menial and familiar task of filling her bunkers allowed the Wo-class to ignore the gaping hole in her deck, and if it wasn't for that damnable sun she could have pretended that her life hadn't fallen apart.
The Abyssal's mood soured further when she reached the base's drydocks. Usually, a drydock would signal its availability with a hum with power and malevolence, a clear sign that its crew was ready for another job. Now, the uninspiring pools of water sat desolate, dead as surely as rest of the Crossroads Fleet was. If Trinitite stripped and dove into waves of the Pacific, she would get just as much help.
Resigned, Trinitite stepped back into the ocean, screws engaging as she left the base behind her. The enemy had wasted no time in Bikini Atoll once they had gotten to Her Princess. With the Crossroads Fleet shattered and their supplies in pristine condition, she couldn't fault their judgement. Soon, like a horde of spider crabs around a sunken corpse, the surrounding abyssal fleets would close on Bikini Atoll and strip it of anything remotely useful.
Anger flared inside of her at the thought. Her Princess had been frank in responding to the demands their "allies" would send to her: If the humans had truly considered the fleets of the Abyss a threat, they would have scoured them from the face of the ocean with Their Fire. Some day, their little crusade would wipe them out, and the Crossroads Fleet wasn't going to help them earn obliteration.
An exception had been the Supply Depot Princess, who had been reasonable enough to earn a few favors from the Crossroads Fleet, but even she hadn't transmitted a word when not one but two human fleets sailed into the heart of abyssal territory to smash the Crossroads Fleet. Who were they to reap all the resources Her Princess had earned? They deserved a torpedo in their keel for betraying their sister, and now they were going to be swimming in the fuel and ammunition the Crossroads Fleet had gathered! This bounty of supplies was the only thing The Fleet had ventured outside the Atoll to get, otherwise content to leave their allies to their own business.
The Wo-class found herself turning back towards her former home. Before she left, she had some unfinished matters to attend to.
Trinitite was running out of time. One of her lookouts had spotted a hell diver overhead, meaning someone was scouting out Bikini Atoll for an incoming fleet. This would have to do.
The Wo-class aircraft carrier sighed, laying the bag of 14-inch shell propellant snug against the base's avgas bunker. She hadn't covered the entirety of the base with explosives from its magazines, but she'd gotten everything she cared about. Whatever bitch was about to make her move on Bikini could have the drydocks. Trinitite snapped a valve off the endangered avgas tank, allowing the vapor to drift across her former base as she took her leave.
Her fire director really was broken. It took 3 salvos from her remaining secondaries before something was caught in the blasts, and even then the detonation only covered the base's magazine. Disappointing, but perhaps not all the damage she had done. There were open flames, as well as plenty of gas vapor. Eventually, the former would meet the latter and chemistry would finish Trinitite's job for her. It would have to do. The Carrier turned, allowing what was left of her life to burn down behind her.
Where now?
Even if the scout plane hadn't reported what she'd done to its superior, and even if she could bring herself to, Trinitite couldn't really ally herself with another one of the Princesses. Many would probably execute her to tie up loose ends, and those who didn't would probably find it more cost-effective to scrap her and summon an entirely new carrier. In theory, the warping around her flight deck could be repaired, but the time it would take wouldn't be worth it for even the most elite carriers, and Trinitite didn't exactly have an impressive service history. That didn't leave her with much, did it?
The image of what Her Princess had become still lingered in her mind. The waves of red hair, the white dress, and that same subdued smile Trinitite had known for years. She was still out there, somewhere. She had changed, yes, boarding the human helicopter and leaving with the rest of the enemy fleet, but by how much? Had the enemy completely erased the Princess she once knew, replacing it with a carrier that only resembled her Mother? Or was she still in there, somewhere?
She needed to know.
As the Wo-class carrier cruised north, she started riffing through her charts. Who did Her Princess say built her? Right. The Eastern Enemy, this "United States." In order to get there, she would have to cruise… northeast, before threading the Midway and Wake Princess's territories and taking an easterly course to the large continent there. Even allowing for combat maneuvers as well as the general zig-zagging she would have to practice to avoid submarines, she would have enough fuel. If she could slip the enemy's patrols, she could disappear into the vast tracts of land on the continent, safe from patrolling destroyers and using the vegetation to hide from enemy aircraft.
She… wasn't sure where to go from there, but Trinitite figured she could think of something after "slipping their patrols" had been taken care of. That would be tricky enough, without having to worry about what came next.