>>6117888“Nagato, I have a task for you as well. A task only you can perform,” you say, turning to the battleship. “For diplomacy, not battle. You survived the war to the end, but most ships of the IJN didn’t: in the event we encounter any, it must fall to you to talk them down.”
Nagato nods gravely. “I shall speak. I cannot say if they will listen.”
“Of course. But we owe it to them to try first.”
With nothing else left on your agenda, you send your escorts. Bainbridge returns to her station while Long Beach takes Nagato aside to give her a crash course in the dangers of the modern age.
“So, the big danger is the anti-ship missile, like I told you earlier,” Long Beach began as they sailed away. “Some like ours are small, since modern ships aren’t armoured, and you can’t armour a radar anyhow. But the Soviets? They built all kinds of nasty massive supersonic overcompensation missiles that could blow up capital ships in one hit, and even designed whole fleets of supersonic heavy bombers just to deliver them. Kind of like the Jeune École of the skies…”
Half an hour later, amidst the golden glow of evening, the thunder of 16’’ gunfire tears through the quiet of the sea. Nagato fires once from each turret, then unleashes a full eight-gun broadside, then another, a tiny steel dragon singing fire back into the world.
Two thousand miles away, a pair of black specks outlined against the setting sun emerge from the patchy clouds to sidle up alongside Ruby Flight. F-16s, you see, laden with anti-air weapons and external tanks, looking like black dragons in their own right. The Vipers stay with your Vikings most of the way to Hawaii as night falls and the ATC at Inouye guides them in, only breaking away as Ruby 1 and 2 descend for their landing approaches.
