Work Text:
[Kaga]
359/KSMG
The waves broke against the bow, spraying white foam high up into the air. The modern carrier was slowly but surely moving into position, the deck cleared of any machines. The storm had gotten worse over the last few days. Kaga stood on the bridge of her ship, looking at the moving horizon. She had been in bad weather many times, so this was no concern for her. After all, her former carrier had been through hell and back, and that literally. She could still remember the old planes taking off from the pitching deck, in danger of steering straight into the ocean and being run over by the massive ship. Her pilots had been in danger of dying every single sortie, but that had not stopped them at all. It was more or less the opposite. Many men preferred the danger of the situation, to make them better in battle. And she had encouraged them.
“Always give the best of yourselves. Only the strong can survive on the battlefield. Crush your enemy. Do not give them a chance to fire back.”
She had trained them well. But that hadn’t been enough. She shook her head, now was not the good time to think about this.
She brushed a streak out of her face, looking over her shoulder. The sailors were standing on their posts, holding the ship on its course. It was a completely normal day for them, with nothing out of the ordinary. For them, it was another day at the office, albeit more agitated. It was after all the first time they ventured in the Atlantic. None of them knew what was going on below the surface, that they steered right at the Victory with full speed ahead. The goal was to reach the vicinity of TF2 as fast as possible and join their formation, then deliver some pieces to the Victory. She had been laughing at first when the helicopter had arrived, the metal pieces hanging below the fuselage. And then she had realized what these pieces were.
Those steel plates, holes for chains cut into it, had once been part of the battleship Nagato, flagship of the Imperial Navy and the Combined Fleet. However, the majority of the ship was unusable now, since the atomic tests had irradiated the steel too much to be worn on the body constantly. That was the reason why this steel plate had been brought in. It once had been of the stack which had been cut off in the war, a few pieces had been stored in the ship, only to be removed before the tests. Now it was one of the few things which remained from the former flagship, not laying irradiated at the bottom of a lagoon, covered in sea life.
But that had not been the only thing the helicopter had been transporting. There had also been something inside the cargo hold. A small bit of Nagato’s sister, Mutsu. The ship had been sunk, most likely due to a scuttling attempt by a frantic crewmember. The whole ship had gone up in flames, thanks to a magazine detonation. Mutsu had been killed instantly. The ship had been declared a total loss and subsequently scrapped. Only the turrets had been removed later, some of the barrels were now on display near the naval base she had been serving in. Every single time she had been on her ship, looking over the bow, she had been able to see Mutsu’s grey barrels, always reminding her that safety was never for sure. Even in harbour the ship could be sunk, even by their own men.
Now that barrel and those plates were their only chance to bring the two shipgirls back. Strange. These battleships had been two of the largest warships the Empire had ever built. Only when the Yamatos had been launched that they had been overshadowed. Nagato and Mutsu had been the most powerful shipgirls of battleships to exist in the Empire. Strangely, the shipgirls had been young girls, not grown up women. Many had questioned back then what reason had been there to do that, but Command had blocked. No one knew why young girls had been coupled to the biggest ships of the Navy. And it was still a mystery. But once they would be revived, maybe that might lighten the confusion a bit. Japan had much to catch up, they only had Mikasa. And the Navy was running away from them.
The Navy had the money to simply buy off all of the cubes and resurrect their shipgirls faster, they already had two new shipgirls in service, Hornet and Yorktown, with two more battleships planned, Nevada and Oklahoma. Also, the Germans were also preparing a bigger program. They had already Prinz Eugen back and it was only a matter of time until they would send Tirpitz, Bismarck and all of the other shipgirls back into service. The only force which was lacking seriously were the British. They had Hood back, but that was only a small droplet on a hot stone. If the Royal Navy wanted to fight effectively, then they needed more shipgirls, and that of all classes. But that would be complicated as the huge majority of their capital ships had been scrapped. All nations until now had only shipgirls of one type, may that be carriers, battleships or cruisers. Not a single Navy had mixed fleets. That was a thing that needed to change in the future, especially since there were many things which still needed to be addressed from all nations.
Many of the old shipgirls were simply too old to work with modern technology, but they had to communicate in some way. The newer systems didn’t work with the old analog ones, and the shipgirls had to stay somewhat together. Especially since the Administration had planned to do something spectacular. They were planning to send a small squad of shipgirls out, all by their own. There would be no ship from the ‘regular forces’ to support them, they would be alone. That way, the SRPA could test if it was possible for shipgirls to monitor areas which couldn’t be accessed by normal ships. Arctic weather was a problem for most of the nations, same with small straits and areas which were too shallow for normal warships. But if they had hundreds of shipgirls on their hands, then they could create a grid all over the ocean, making it impossible for the Empress to sneak up.
The attack would come. That was sure. Only question was when and how. If they were thinking like the Empress, then she herself would try to blow the air out of the sails of Humanity. That would then be in some kind of big attack, most likely all around the Earth at the same time. Or it would be concentrated on one target, big enough to be impossible to defeat. The Empress had gigantic powers and an entire army of Sirens under her orders, allowing her to become even stronger. She was the biggest threat they had at the moment and they were not able to fight her yet. The shipgirls still needed some time to get back into the action and finally be able to fight. If the plan continued like now, then they would have around a dozen shipgirls by the end of the month, maybe a few more if Purifier worked overnight.
Kaga sighed and shook her head ever so faintly, looking at the deck below. The helicopter on the deck began to spool up its engine, the rotors pattering over the deck. A few lights were blinking on the hull, throwing harsh shadows all around. She could hear the muffled sound through the thick windows of the bridge, being barely louder than the steady sounds behind her. The helmsman was correcting the course from time to time, sometimes a phone rang. But that was it. The bridge was nearly quiet all of the times, apart from the time where a few orders were given. She had never been on the bridge of other ships, but she could imagine that the bridge of her ship was especially quiet. She always liked to have it calm, probably due to her former ship. When there were many planes rumbling over the deck, then it was better to have the bridge quiet, to relax her ears at least a bit. Those fox ears. Extremely useful to pinpoint an aircraft location, but they were very sensitive. That’s why always had a pair of earplugs when she was directing operations from the flight deck. Same with her tails. They increased her powers but could be stuck in a doorway. And this had happened way too many times.
Kaga looked inside her mind, looking at the position of her ship. A few merchants were steaming around her, she was chasing past TF2 with nearly flank speed. She would be chewing up oil like crazy, but the Administration paid for it. The Germans had sent two fleet oilers towards the fleet, in case any of the escorting ships needed assistance. The Victory itself had unlimited range, thanks to the three submarines which towed it. Only all of the other ships had to refuel and to restock often. She had also quite a bit of stock onboard, since some destroyers had told her that they were running low on a few supplies. Her ship wasn’t in configuration for a war, that would change once she would see a Japanese harbour the next time. Then she would take on extra helicopters and men, she would ready herself for an attack.
She had heard that the American ships were already staffed to the maximum, they always had their magazines full. The German frigate needed only a few more men, but all of her missiles were depleted, making it useless for her to be in a defensive position. The Victory only had its small defences onboard, it didn’t have any systems to attack. The French ship was in peace configuration, it wasn’t of much use either. Only ships which could shelter them effectively were the ones of the shipgirls. They already had two carriers who were able to fight, be it with weapons from the war. It would be very difficult to fight with them, especially since they knew how hard it was to kill Sirens.
Defeating Purifier had been possible, but only with the help of Odin. The experimental shipgirl had done a spectacular light-show on the horizon, she had been able to stomp the Siren into the ground. Of course, Purifier was only a young Siren with little to no experience in fighting, she was no match against stronger and more experienced Sirens the Empress had under her hand. Fighting against Sirens like Smasher, Tester or Strength would probably be the hardest thing. It was questionable if a normal shipgirl was even able to defeat them at all. There were still so many questions and yet so little time to answer them all. A thing which had to be done in the future, the near future.
The Empress could attack at any time, she could strike Earth out of the blue. The Administration had been forged to fight against that threat, they had been forged to shield Humanity from the evil which was not from this world. A force which had yet to be measured. If the Administration continued like now with the coupling of new shipgirls, they would maybe be too late to fight. The war could be over quicker than anyone would like. It had been like that once already. Back in the war where the Empire had its weapons pointed at the Union, striking it in one go. Pearl Harbor. The goal was to cripple the Union’s fleet and buy enough time for the Empire to take the upper hand. But that had failed. And when the Empress would show up, it would be the same. Humanity would play the role of the Union and the Sirens, the Empire. Everyone tried to keep that from happening, to be prepared in time. If they succeeded, then they would never have to worry about such things ever again. But if they lost now, then Humanity would be doomed. There was no way the Empress would let anyone survive, Purifier had said that from the beginning on. A total war with the Sirens would most likely be fatal in any way. That’s why they needed to win a decisive battle.
Kaga swallowed and saw the helicopter take off from the deck, throwing rain up against the window. The machine began to ascend more and more, then began to steer onto the open ocean, where the Victory was located. In less than an hour they would arrive on the carrier and be able to deliver the pieces from the two battleships, finally able to resurrect bigger ships than Mikasa of the former empire. The old times were coming back slowly now. The old times where shipgirls had reigned the seas and where the future had been bright. Just as bright as it was now.