Part 41
Musashi felt her booming laugh die suddenly partway up her throat. The abyssal force had turned in as one, the already battered warships bleeding yet more speed as they scrambled to bring every gun they had to bear. They were sitting targets, floating at a range where they couldn't help but hit the super battleship's impervious belt armor.
Only they didn't fire at her. They fired at Heermann. Heermann, the little destroyer who'd never left Nagato's side. Heermann, the destroyer who fought like a battleship against impossible odds. They fired on her and tore her hull apart with a furious salvo from every gun they had. It wasn't even some freak accident. A volley that focused could only have been directed at her.
The abyssals bled their speed…showed their broadsides…put themselves in mortal danger purely to kill that little girl. There wasn't any other reason, no other explanation made sense. The battleship felt her blood start to boil. Seawater flashed to steam as crashed against her tanned upper works.
"M-Musashi?" Hoel stared up at Musashi with teary eyes, her tiny body barely controlling a quiver as the abyssals turned their wrath against her.
Deep inside her, Musashi felt something snap. She was mad. Madder than she'd ever been in her life. So mad she was…serene. She saw the world around her with perfect clarity. Time slowed to a crawl around her, droplets of salt spray glistened like jewels as they crawled though the air.
Battleship Musashi of the Imperial Japanese Navy felt something she'd never felt before. Righteous anger. She wasn't fighting to prove herself any more, she was fighting for Heermann. She was fighting to avenge the valor of a girl who stood her ground in the face of hell itself. And Musashi would have her vengeance.
"Hoel," said the battleship, her gaze locked on the abyssal battleship that fired the killing blow.
"Y-Yes?" gulped the destroyer, her knuckles white as she clutched at her five inch turrets.
"Get behind me," said Musashi. Her brows knit in fury as she spat out the words, her snow-white hair whipping in the howling arctic wind as she brought her guns around. The little destroyer didn't need to be told twice, her tiny body retreated behind the massive battleship's unstoppable bulk. Musashi barely gave it a thought as she locked her rangefinders on the slowly-accelerating abyssal.
"My name is Musashi," she said, her face twisting into a furious scowl as the battered abyssal scrambled to get back underway. "Second ship of the Yamato class. The last battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy." She was all but shaking with rage now, her eyes locked on her target as her gunners cross-checked their solutions. "If you want a fight…here I am."
Her nine 46cm rifles thundered as one, hurling armor-piercing shells at the instrument of her little friend's death. The panicked abyssal tried a last-minute turn to dodge the shells racing though the air. But at this range, Musashi couldn't have missed even if she tried.
"This is for Heermann," breathed the battleship, her arms folding across her breast in quiet triumph, "you son of a bitch."
Her shells crashed home, slamming through the abyssal's armor and feedwater tanks like they weren't even there, their armor-piercing caps keeping them dead straight as they punched though inches of armor steel like it was so much soggy tissue paper.
One round found its mark in the forward magazine, touching off an explosion that lifted the entire forward section of the battleship out of the water with an eruption of burning decking and twisted metal shrapnel.
A millisecond later, another of Musashi's 46cm shells exploded inside the rear-most magazine, tearing everything forward of the battleship's monolithic tower mast clean off. Yet another shell connected with the stern-mounted secondary magazines. The battleship's hull plates blew out like some seagoing giant had simply stepped on it.
Before it could even finish disintegrating, sixteen 41cm shells—eight each from Nagato and Mutsu—slammed into what little was left, pulverizing the twisted mockery of a battleship out of existence. All that remained of the Heermann's killer was a slick of burning oil and a few chunks of debris smaller than Musashi's fist.
"Burn in hell you piece of shit," breathed Musashi, her anger seething though her as she whipped her head around. There was still one battleship left, and the hateful…ice bitch who ordered that strike.
"M-Musashi?" Hoel tugged at the battleship's skirt, her tear-filled eyes bouncing from the battleship to where here sister's battered hull was rapidly dyeing the ocean an oily red.
"Go," said the battleship, whipping her glasses off and wiping the lens clean with the corner of her shirt cape.
Hoel didn't need to be told twice. She—and Johnston, after a nod from Mutsu—sprinted over to their beloved sister. Hoel traded her five-inch for a fire-hose and spuriously sprayed down the fires burning in her sister's shattered stern, even as tears flowed down her tiny face.
Johnston didn't even wait for the fires. The tips of her feathers let off a stream of smoke as the heat singed them. But the little destroyer never faltered. She pulled up alongside her sister as gently as she could, cradling Heermann in her arms as faeries sprinted across in firefighting gear. "She- she's still alive."
Musashi gasped. After a wound like that…a cruiser would die from less.
"We'll…we'll get her stabilized," said Hoel, her voice straining in hope as she tied up alongside her battered sister.
"And we'll handle the stragglers," said Nagato, her steel-hard gaze flicking from Musashi to the abyssal cruisers desperately trying to find more distance. "Musashi."
"Hai, Nagato-sama," said the super battleship, brushing her snowy hair back as she slid her glasses back into place.
"Sink. That. Bitch."
—|—|—
Across the battlefield, battleship New Jersey felt her vision tint red. Her radar pierced though the fog banks and bodily intimidated the howling rain squalls to get the fuck out of the way. She could see the icy hulk of the Northern Princess sulking in the false safety of a fog bank. She issued a kill order and didn't even have the fucking balls to stand and watch.
Jersey didn't even realize her hands were balled into fists until she felt them smash into the muscle of her thighs. There wasn't much she recalled from her time as a museum ship, but the piercing, shooting pain of a torpedo ripping her machinery rooms apart was one of them. It was more pain than she even thought possible to bear. And now little Heermann, her Heermann, her beloved little destroyer was suffering all that but a thousand times worse.
All because of that. Icy. Bitch.
"Jersey?" Kongou pulled up abreast of the fuming American, her porcelain features a perfect mix of English and Japanese, with a healthy dose of fear ladled over everything.
"She hurt Heermann," breathed the Battleship, her screws biting into the water as she pushed herself up to flank. "Tenryuu!"
"Hai." There wasn't a shred of bombast or cockyness in the old cruiser's voice. Just anger. Anger diluted only by the murderous focus of a mother bear defending her cubs.
"Sitrep," growled Jersey, her screws kicking up a furious rooster tail as she plowed past thirty knots.
"The last battleship is moving to cut you off."
Jersey scowled. There was no way in hell one battleship armed with four-fucking-teen inch guns could stop her, even if she wasn't so fucking mad even physics itself was staying thefuck out of her way. "She's sending it to its death," she said. "Buying time to fucking fade."
"Probably," came the cruiser's curt reply. "The girls and I still have our fish. We can try and stop it."
"Negative," said Jersey, her screws pushing her all the way up to her redline…and they kept on going. "Put 'em into the princess."
"Gladly."
Jersey shoved that issue to the back of her mind. She had another ship to deal with. The last battleship between her and the princess. One last guardian throwing its life away to buy a few fruitless seconds for the cowardly carrier to cut and run.
"New Jersey," the booming voice of Musashi echoed though Jersey's radio room. The American glanced across her hull to see the massive battleship smash though a fog bank not a thousand yards off her bow.
"Musashi," grunted Jersey, "I'm not in the fucking mood."
"Neither am I," boomed the Japanese girl, her mast blossoming in signal flags and…and a forty-eight star ensign flying just below the rising sun of her battle flag. "What say you we put this bitch down. Together."
Jersey cracked a grin. "Hell fucking yeah, 'Sashi. You got those guns ready?"
"Loaded and ready to fire."
"Good." Jersey swept her gaze to the lone remaining abyssal battleship. Twenty-thousand yards off her bow and screaming towards her at twenty knots. The battleship flicked its tail out, bringing its stern quadruple turret into play as it tried in vain to match the fire power of two furious super battleships.
The abyssal straightened out into a steady course as its primitive fire control locked down variable after variable. It'd have a perfect solution soon…
But Jersey was faster on the trigger. Her radar was tracking it from the instant it came into sight. She had her range. She had her relative speed. She had every bit of information she needed to erase the hateful thing from the face of the planet.
"MOVE, BITCH!" she bellowed, her forward six guns barking in harmony as she barreled towards the creeping mass of the Norther Princess at almost thirty-six knots. Any other day, she might have put more effort into dealing with the abyssal battleship in an elegant way. But this… this was no ordinary day. The princess had hurt her beloved Heermann. All the battleships she could throw were nothing more than glorified speed bumps for the enraged American war machine.
"All Batteries FIRE!" barked Musashi mere instants later. Her forward turrets thundered in response, their concussive voices blowing a perfect dome though the last wisps of fog that clung to her towering pagodas.
The abyssal knew it was doomed. Its bow tucked under as it threw itself into reverse, but it was too little too late. Twelve armor-piercing shells from two of the best battleships ever built bracketed it in a cage to towering splashes. They tore though its armor, laughing at the steel and chitin they burrowed though and tearing the ship apart from the inside. Gouts of flame erupted as magazines and boilers alike were torn to shreds, cracking the ship in pieces as a fireball of cordite and oil blossomed around the twisted warship.
Jersey felt a wicked smile flash across her face. Watching the titanic fire bloom into the sky did nothing to dampen her rage. But it did focus it, it forged her fury into a tool to break the Princess apart with. Piece by piece.
"Jersey," Tenryuu panted though the battleship's radio room, "I can't keep up… I'm sending the girls to escort you in."
"Copy that," said Jersey, giving a nod to the four destroyers forming up into a piercing wedge around her.
"No one touches you!" said the purple haired on.
"You can depend on us!" said the short-haired brunette.
"We're with you, nanodesu," said the…other short-haired one.
The snowy-haired one just offered a salute before turning her eyes back to the sea.
"Mushi," Jersey glanced at the super battleship she was slowly closing on, "You good for fire support?"
The Japanese battleship tossed her hair back, one hand resting on her hip as her guns dropped to their loading angles. "It would be my honor, Jersey."
"Let's finish this fight," growled Jersey, her grin turning absolutely bloodthirsty as she spotted the Princess on the horizon. Its hull was covered in huge craters where Tenryuu's kiddos had landed their spread of long-lance torpedoes. Oil streamed from cracked bunkers in a vast slick. She was hurting… hurting bad. Hurting like she'd hurt Heermann…
"You kiddos do good work," said Jersey, earning a beaming smile from the purple-haired destroyer. The battleship shifted her gaze back to the limping iceberg, her grin going dead flat. "Looks like you just ran out of friends."
She pulled her stern out in a gentle turn, bringing her after turret to bear as she slowed to twenty-five knots. She was well inside her rage, and well outside the princess's. No reason to make this any easier for the abyssal than it had to be. "Now fucking die." she hissed, her guns thundering in emphasis.
Musashi's shells joined seconds later, and the two battleships fell into a deadly rhythm. Their shells crashed into the Princess's icy hull, burrowing deep into her hull and blowing vast cracks though the ever-weakening pykrete. Vast chuncks of the Princess's hull sloughed off as shell after shell slammed home, tearing holes in her side all the way though to her aviation hangers.
Huge spouts of flame poured out of the carrier's rent open side as aviation fuel ignited. Cracks shot down her deck and hull as water poured into her battered side, twisting and torquing her battered frame as she tried to capsize three different ways.
Finally, after almost an hour of relentless shelling, the two battleships finally broke the abyssal carrier. Musashi and Jersey's shells tore though what was left of the Princess's keel and tore her hull apart in an eruption of burning fuel oil and exploding aircraft ordnance.
"We did it." Jersey panted. Her throat was parched, her gun barrels sizzling hot, her stomach growling at her in frustration. But she'd done it. She'd vanquished the heartless bitch who almost killed Heermann. "Way to go, Mushi," she said, offering her closed fist to the Japanese super battleship.
Musashi wordlessly raised her own fist to meet the American, an exhausted smile spreading across her face. "We did it," she echoed.
- - - - - - -
A/N: But what about Heermann? We'll deal with her repairs... next time!
