Escalation

December 1st, 2002 - Waters near Tokyo - Yamato Empire

The Imperial fleet was getting more and more daring with every passing day. Today, a 'stray' shell from a battleship hit the hull of Bennington, the Essex-class aircraft carrier who served as the heart of the 14th Carrier Battle Group.

Three other ships in the Westarian force had already sustained similar damages. The Imperial fleet kept calling these occurrences accidents, but Salem knew that that wasn't the case. She could tell that their flagship, Fusō, wanted a fight, and was probably hoping for the Westarians to fire back.

But Salem could not let that happen. Even if two-thirds of the Imperial Navy was gathered in Tokyo, and Yamato kept stalling their negotiations every day, things could still work out well. 

But those were the thoughts of a dreamer. 

The real world wasn't like that. 

Salem needed to have possession of 'John Smith' within the next five days, but she knew that Yamato would never give her the Empire's greatest asset.

If she was going to to carry out her orders, she needed to act more aggressive.

***

That was what had been going on in Salem's head only a few days prior, but she couldn't understand how that had led her here.

She could feel the life leaving Bennington's body as her hull slowly sank beneath the waves, covered in fires.

All around her, hulls and bodies from both Imperial and Westarian shipgirls slowly disappeared into the murky depths of the water.

No one had expected how the shells of the super battleship would tear through their hulls like a knife through butter. The first salvo of her guns had sank three Imperial battleships, and by the time that the Free Fleet had left the harbour, Yokosuka was covered in flames.

Rain had started to fall, washing the blood off of Salem's face. As it pelted her deck, she thought back on how she had gotten here.

***

After Bennington got hit, Salem had ordered that all of the fleet's submarines submerged for a dive capacity test, and had had Bennington and Bogue, an escort carrier, launch as many planes as possible in a joint flight practice, or at least, that was what she told the Imperial battleship who had come demanding answers.

In reality, she was sick of letting Fusō push her around. It was about time that she pushed back. If Fusō wanted to fire shells at her ships and set up her fleet around them, then she would get her aircraft and submarines ready to attack them at a moment's notice.

Over the next few days, the situation kept escalating, until, at 6:47 in the morning on December 5th, an Imperial battleship opened fire on Bennington, destroying one of her elevators and starting a fire in her hangar.

That was when it hit the fan.

A massive firefight began, between the fifty Westarian ships and the Imperial fleet, which kept getting more and more reinforcements. The Westarian fleet immediately began moving south, towards Yokosuka, where the Builder was.

Salem knew that this was there only chance; they had to grab the Builder know and retreat to Pearl Harbour.