Chapter 35:
Shadow of an Eternal Horizon
February 18, 2003, - Waters Southeast of Diego Garcia, Westarian-Yamato Third Fleet Advance Route - Southern Expanse
2137
It had been almost a month since the Free Fleet had encountered Tirpitz's fleet at Diego Garcia. The fleet, comprised of Hasegawa Kenji, a Builder from another world with the ability to create shipgirls; Fuji, a shipgirl he had created, and the strongest battleship in the world; Myōkō, the Yamato cruiser that had found him; and Salem, a Westarian cruiser who had joined them in order to save herself and report to her country.
They had all suffered injuries during the events of Diego Garcia, with the exception of Salem, who had saved the rest of them from Tirpitz's subordinates.
Hasegawa had been sedated and was unconscious for only a short while, the same with Myōkō. Fuji had attempted to fight Tirpitz directly in hand-to-hand combat, and had ended up in a coma for several days, recovering onboard Salem.
During that coma, she had spoken properly with the remnants of Hyūga, Ise, and Kongō, the Yamato battleships she had slaughtered in Yokosuka, which were trapped inside her mind. These remnants had left her almost incapacitated, due to the stress of her brain handling several consciousnesses at once.
Due to the degree of Fuji's injuries, both physical and mental, she was unable to move, at least not for any prolonged period of time. Because of this, the members of the Free Fleet agreed to stay at Diego Garcia until Fuji recovered.
During that time, Salem and Myōkō taught Hasegawa many things about the world of Oceana. After several weeks, on the 15th of February, Salem decided that Fuji was in proper condition to set sail. Their destination?
Lesser Oceanica, a colony of the Oceanic Empire, was composed of a large number of large, barren islands where no one lived. It was, according to Hasegawa, the equivalent of a nation called 'Australia' in his world, though Fuji had no idea what that meant.
They had left at dawn, and had smooth sailing for the first two days. On the third day, a little bit before sunrise, a storm rolled in from the north, and they decided to divert their course to the south to pass around it.
By midday, they had escaped the reach of the storm, and began to even out their course. They were heading on a smooth ocean current to the east, with the wind at their backs. Not that that mattered, as combat vessels hadn't used sails as a method of propulsion for centuries.
They relaxed their guard as the afternoon passed and began to fade into the evening. There were only a few clouds in the sky, and they were slowly turning pink in the light of the setting sun.
The weather was far too nice for them to stay inside their hulls, and they had gathered on the top of Fuji's 'B' turret, looking out at the ocean in front of them. The turret was mounted so high that they could even see over Myōkō's and Salem's hulls.
The turret was large and spacious, and Salem had brought stretchers from her infirmary to set up as deck chairs. They were arrayed in a loose semicircle, with Myōkō on one end and Fuji on the other.
Distrust had existed between Myōkō and Fuji as long as they had been traveling with Hasegawa, primarily due to Fuji's doubts about where Myōkō's loyalties truly lay. Things between them had gotten worse at Malacca, when Fuji had pointed her gun barrels straight at Myōkō.
That was when the remnants of the three battleships had appeared in Fuji's mind, and it was also the start of a large divide between the two. They both tried to avoid each other whenever possible, and, after the events on Diego Garcia, Fuji tried to keep Myōkō from being alone with Hasegawa as much as possible.
Hasegawa and Salem had been trying to bring the two of them together, and make them mend their bridges, but they had made little progress. It didn't help that neither of them fully trusted Salem, due to how spontaneously she had decided to join the fleet, though after she saved them at Diego Garcia, that had started to change.
Altogether, there was quite a bit of distrust in the Free Fleet, and its members were hardly inclined to do something like this. It was only thanks to the weather and enough prodding from Hasegawa that they had all gathered for the evening.
Between the sunset, the warm air, and the coffee and ice cream that Salem had brought, it looked like that distrust was starting to fade. If things stayed like this, the cracks in the Free Fleet would probably fade.
It wasn't Fuji who was thinking this, though it was in her brain. It was Ise, one of the three battleships whose minds remained within Fuji's brain. She had been practicing ever since her coma to accommodate them in her brain while maintaining her normal thought processes, and had gotten to the point where she could act completely normal while allowing one of the three battleships to operate at a similar cognitive level.
She had learned a decent bit about the three battleships. Hyūga, who had spoken to her during her coma, was very well educated, and had been involved in weapons development in the Yamato Empire. Ise, her older sister, was a lot more insightful, and had a large optimistic streak. Kongō, who had been in charge of the two of them, was quite oblivious and happy-go-lucky, but when it came to combat, she was a tactical expert, which had brought her all the way to the rank of Commodore in the Empire.
She still hadn't told Hasegawa about the remnants yet, even though she knew she shouldn't hide anything from him. She decided that she would tell him the next morning, once they were alone.
"Hey, what's that?"
All of them look in the direction that Myōkō was pointing. Just above the horizon, and backlit by the sun, was a small black speck.
"Hmm, let me get a good look at it."
Salem lined up her radar and and gun scope systems towards the speck, trying to get a better look at it.
"It's not just one," Salem said, turning to face the others, "It's two specks, maintaining an equal distance between them and moving towards us at a speed of about 180 knots, at an altitude of about 35,000 feet."
"Carrier-based aircraft? Dammit!" Fuji let out a quick outburst, before composing herself.
"The only question is," Myōkō began, "who sent them?"
"And do they know we're here?" Hasegawa added.
***
2204
Fleet Group Charlie, the third of the five fleets formed by the combined forces of Yamato and Westaria, had set a course straight for Diego Garcia. While the other four fleet groups spread out to cover the vast emptiness of the Southern Expanse, Charlie had organized itself into a single formation, with a large spearhead of destroyers, a centre of heavy cruisers and battleships, and the carriers of the fleet at the rear of the formation.
The air wings of the fleet had been reorganized with the singular goal of sinking Fuji. Akagi and Lexington, the two fleet carriers of the fleet group, were carrying only torpedo and dive bombers, with not a single fighter in either of their hangers.
Instead, a singular escort carrier, Long Island, had nothing but fighters on her deck, and had been sending them out for the past few days to search for their targets. She carried F4U Corsairs, the fastest and farthest flying fighters that either nation had in its arsenal.
Only a few minutes earlier, a pair of these fighters sent an emergency radio transmission to the fleet. After the signal was received, all contact with the fighters was gone.
Aircraft had a unique relationship with shipgirls. Aircraft weren't bound to any specific shipgirl, and could be flown manually if necessary. However, any shipgirl with aviation capabilities could control aircraft, they just needed to launch that aircraft from their own hull, and then they could control it in a similar manner to how they controlled their hulls. They didn't have the same level of control as they did with their hulls, and they were inferior to actual pilots, but they were still able to operate squadrons of aircraft and have them follow loose commands.
The signal was one such loose order: in the event of an encounter with the Builder or any member of the Builder's fleet, they were to send a radio broadcast with their coordinates and the time of the encounter. They expected to lose the planes as soon as the message was sent, simply due to the strength of Fuji's anti-aircraft armaments.
There was no doubt that the Builder's fleet would know about the message and its contents, but there was little that they could do about it. Fleet Group Charlie had already adjusted its course to head straight for the Builder, and Bravo and Delta were moving to create an encirclement.
Against of foe of over 300 ships and 1000 aircraft, even a super-battleship like Fuji wouldn't be able to survive. It was time for Des Moines to put an end to this business, and to get her sister back.
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