Well, Don't Feed Her is undergoing scope creep. "I can cover a week in a single chapter and then chapter 3 will be the actual operation itself," I said. "Nothing will go wrong with this idea at all," I said. "I can totally fit everything into the next 4k words," I said.
So this is still Chapter 2.
"Hey, are you going to do drills today?" Kongou asked.
"Yeah, I want to do some AA drills." Sendai said. "Probably should do some maneuver drills too, since I got my props replaced. I wonder if there's any time scheduled for that today?"
"Maybe? Katori wrote the schedule." Kongou replied. "But I should probably do drills now as well."
"Thanks." Sendai said. "Shall we head over?'
----
They'd been conducting AA drills for half an hour before anyone else showed up. Naka, Yahagi, Abukuma, Natori, and Kinu showed up at the Futtsu ordnance grounds. The abandoned city was covered in mostly shrubs, with a few small trees here and there. Except for the conspicuous bare patch from where some Air Force team had tried to recreate napalm about 18 years ago. While they had succeeded, the weapons had been ineffective against an enemy that didn't need to breathe and was always found extremely close to large amounts of water.
"Hey sis!" Naka shouted. "I wanted to drag you out here, but it looks like you got here first. That's our new stray, right?" She pointed at Blue, patiently waiting behind.
"Air practice?" Yahagi asked, glancing towards a chunk of foam from one of the targets that had been shot down earlier.
"Huh?" Naka asked. "But aren't you getting tested on anti-surface gunnery this week?"
"One never needs a reason to practice AA gunnery." Yahagi shrugged.
"Yes, this is Blue, our new stray." Sendai said. "Say hello, everyone." All five newcomers greeted her. "She doesn't talk." Sendai added.
"So, why are you practicing AA again?" Naka asked.
"Because when Blue showed up, we discovered that there are at least three carrier Demons within about a hundred kilometers of the coast." Sendai said. "Which means associated escorts and capitals. Which we're going to need to kill."
"Wait, how did you figure out that?" Natori asked. "Because…"
"Blue's self-summon was extremely energetic. We saw it over the horizon, and so did the Abyssals. They sent in a plane to scout and she shot it down. Then they sent in half an air wing, and she shot that down. So then they sent at least four hundred planes to deal with the problem. Good news is that those planes focused on the unusual Blue, who can take damage like a champ." Sendai said.
"She has how much AA?" Yahagi asked. "To take down a hundreds of fighters easily… she really does not look like she has that kind of firepower."
"Actually…" Sendai grinned, "let me show you." She sailed over to a set of rafts loaded with cheap R/C drones, and picked up one and the remote. She started the motor and tossed the hunk of foam into the air before putting both hands on the remote. The tiny plane gained altitude and flew off over the barren land of the testing ground.
"Hey Blue." Sendai asked. "Can you attack that plane?"
No sooner had she spoke than a stream of smoke lanced up from Blue's port wingtip and into the sky. It arced over and streaked down, a sonic boom reaching them right before the explosion. The cone of dust and flame left nothing behind.
Yahagi frowned. "A contact-fused shaped-charge warhead. I don't think anyone makes anti-air missiles like those."
"Yeah, Blue has a bunch of systems that none of us do." Sendai said.
"Ah, not to interrupt, but didn't we come here to practice?" Natori said.
"Yeah, it's cruiser practice time!" Kinu said. "Get out of here, old lady." She directed at Kongou.
"That's okay." Abukuma said to Kongou. "She's just worried about her age. But really, she doesn't look 122 years old."
"Hey!" Kinu shouted.
--------
An hour of AA gunnery and half an hour of testing her new props later, Sendai poked her head into one of the destroyer lounges, dominated by the serafukus of the Fubuki- and Ayanami-class. Sendai scanned the fleet until she found the particular destroyer she was looking for. Then she took a step to the side, double-checked the positioning, and cartwheeled halfway across the room.
"Hey Ayanami!" She greeted.
"Oh, hello Sendai." Ayanami looked up. "What brings you here?"
"First, check up on you. You good for tonight? New fairies not causing trouble?" Sendai said, sitting down.
"Oh, no, I'm fine." She said. "I ran the new fairies through some drills last night and they can handle the torpedoes just fine."
"Great." Sendai said. "Wouldn't want you miss it. Secondly, can you try to meet me at the armory after dinner? We're running a deeper patrol tonight, so I want to you equipped with nestbusters so we don't have to call in as many airstrikes."
"Oh! Great."
"Yeah, can you tell your divmates if you see them? I need to go fill out the paperwork for that."
---------
Later that night, about 2230
The fog was up past their ankles, and their radars had managed to pick up contacts. A Ni-class destroyer flagship, two To-class cruisers, and one Ta-class battleship. Run or fight?
"We're engaging!" Sendai shouted. "I'm going to occupy the battleship! Take down the flagship and stay alive!"
Sendai watched the enemy line, and timed her flank-speed to - now!
She shot forward, skating around three enemy fish, then dodged to the side as the battleship fired, the four maws spitting hatred at her. She loosed her own torpedoes into the water: four wire, four homing a second later.
The next volley wasn't even close, and there was one more before she got to melee range. Her torpedoes juked at the last second, scoring two good hits. She tracked the maws, and dodged.
A line of pain against her thigh - a shell hit. But no time for that, now, there's a multi-mouthed shark that needs some explosives in its turbines. It masses more than her, but it's night out and her engines throb with the need to fight.
---
Big Lady has gotten hit. She knows, because she is a part of Big Lady. She hurries through the corridors followed by two of her sisters, still strapping on her helmet. The rest of her EOD suit is already on, in preparation of Big Lady going into battle. The corridor flips around as Big Lady does a handstand, but she has already braced herself for this.
As Big Lady enters freefall for a brief moment, she and her sisters push themselves down the corridor, trying to get there soon. She does a Very Important job for Big Lady, which needs doing right now. The APHE shell from the Really Big Fish could blow at any moment - only Big Lady's luck caused the fuse to malfunction, because the Really Big Fish was not anticipating Big Lady.
As Big Lady leans on her side, she drops down a corridor that is now a shaft, far closer now. Her sisters follow her, and smoothly jump from wall to floor to wall to ceiling to wall to floor as Big Lady tumbles upright once again.
She bursts through the door, seeing her uniform-wearing sisters already pulling steel and kevlar debris away from the section of hull nearly peeled off. Her ordnance comrades, in coveralls and red scarves, are checking the racks of depth charges.
But there is a task that needs doing. Big Lady's group of EOD fairies are the largest in the fleet, for Big Lady's luck and combat style result in lots of dud shells. And more and keep hitting.
---
Sendai flipped herself over the battleship's dorsal fin, wincing as more and more tiny shells either bounced off her armor or dug in. She was taking a lot of hits, and sooner or later she'd take another she regretted.
"Chirp." She heard, and shot out another secondary on the big hate-shark. She spared a bit of attention to see what her watchfairy did, and saw Uranami with the flagship's neck between her foot and her anchor.
Alright, time for this part! "Hey, you!" She shouted at one of the cruisers, accompanied by a few 14cm shells. Then she dove off the battleship, right towards the cruiser, handspringing off the ocean and going full right rudder the instant her feet touched the water.
Just as a dozen battleship rounds passed through the space where she was, heading towards the cruiser. And heading in the opposite direction were a bunch of torpedoes. Friendly fire is only friendly when it's your enemy doing it.
------------
November 8, 0400
This was the sixth nest they'd run across on this patrol. And they had only brought five pairs of nestbusters, so it was time to call in an airstrike. As soon as they got out of the fog and radio back, at least.
Ten minutes to get far enough from the fog that they could make the call. That did give them plenty of time for DamCon at least. They'd all need nice long baths later, but none of them had lost any weapons or fairies.
Then they had to sail back to the nest and make sure it wasn't spawning something that could throw up any sort of AA. In this case, the nest had started spawning a Wo-class carrier. The lack of claws, spindly legs, and the presence of something that would eventually look close to a human face informed the patrol group that this would become a flagship.
Unless someone walked up and stabbed it in its psuedo-face with a Mark 47 Multipurpose Anti-Abyssal torpedo. Just as Sendai finished that, a voice came over the radio.
"Patrol 1-9, Banhammer. Time to strike two minutes. Better get away. Over"
"Banhammer, Patrol 1-9. Copy. We're on our way out. Over" Ayanami replied, as the formation turned towards the west.
"Patrol 1-9, Banhammer. Was anything in the nest hatching? Over."
"Banhammer, there was a flagship Wo forming. It was taken care of. Over." Sendai said.
The P-1B came into sight. Just before it passed overhead, its bombs dropped from it. The shipgirls tracked the bombs as they fell and steered themselves to the nest.
Several tons of bomb impacted the nest, creating a shockwave that the girls felt in their keels.
"Patrol 1-9, Banhammer. That's all our bombs. We're returning to base. You're clear to check it out. Over."
---------
Mkay, ANs:
First, some of you might have noticed that I described the battleship as a shark, when the game graphics indicate it looks human. Yep. Only flagships, demons and princesses look like humans in this fanon. These are also the only Abyssals to understand complex concepts like "friendly fire" and "that car is not an enemy, stop knawing on it and help me shoot these shipgirls".
Second, I'm curious what you all thought of the fairy segment.