Interlude - Closing in on Diego Garcia

February 19, 2003 - Fleet Group Charlie Advance Path - Southern Expanse

0538

It had been several hours since Fleet Group Charlie, under the command of the Westarian heavy cruiser Des Moines, had sent out a message to the other fleets about the appearance and location of the Builder. Alpha and Echo were both too far away to reliably arrive in time to contribute, so they had instead set courses to go around the area and block off any path of retreat. 

This left the two Yamato commanded fleets, Bravo, which was under Fusō's command, and Delta, which was under Mikasa's command, were moving to join with Charlie, and take on the Builder together. It would take at least a day or two for them to get to the battlefield, so Charlie had to stay far enough away from the Builder to avoid combat, but still keep them spotted. Charlie didn't have many reconnaissance aircraft, so it would be hard to keep track of the Builder's location, especially with how quickly Fuji would shoot them out of the sky. 

Analysts from Charlie had run the numbers, and by the time that Bravo and Delta rendezvoused with Charlie, they would have driven the Builder back to Diego Garcia, at least based on the Builder's reported retreat from Charlie. At Diego Garcia, they would end it all, for good. 

For the governments of both countries, this was a matter of securing an important resource for the sake of national security. For Fusō, this was personal. She remembered how vibrant Kongō had been back in Tokyo, only days before she had been torn in half by Fuji's cannon fire. The only targets that were to be kept alive were the Builder and the Westarian hostage. Fuji and Myōkō were both lower priority retrieval targets, and Fusō would make sure that she repaid them in kind for betraying their country and slaughtering their comrades. 

She looked out at her fleet, a force of over a hundred shipgirls from both Yamato and Westaria. directly behind her were three Yamato heavy cruisers, all identical with three twin turrets in the forest position, two in the aft, and a slanted funnel between their superstructures. She would make sure that it was as painful as possible for the traitors.