>>6110885Though a moment of serious temptation passes by you to attack both fleets at once, it is a brief moment. So long as you can defeat their air wings, you’ll be able to attack at leisure, and you’re a goddamn supercarrier with more than enough depth of magazine to consume however many interceptors their escorts carried, even if it took days to wear them down. That is what you were *made to do.* But defeating those air wings had to come first, and Step One to that end was putting one of those carriers under with prejudice before it can get its planes in the air in the first place. So long as they had two flight decks operational it would hinder your own ability to concentrate force adequately against either fleet. And the longer the air battle continued, the more danger there was to Prinz Eugen and your air wing - and the more there was of being located and attacked yourself.
You glance at the time again as the last birds of event 3 marshall and fly away. 12:56. First contact with the Enemy should occur in less than 15 minutes, while on your end the aircraft of event 2 would be landing.
In the fleeting calm before the battle, you check in with the other members of your little fleet. You’ve taken their lives into your hands; it’s only right to reach out.
‘Long Beach, Bainbridge, Enterprise - it was an honour serving with you for all those years, and it is an honour to serve with you again,’ you say.
‘Likewise, E.’
‘Light ‘em up and send ‘em under. We got ya covered here.’
You smile to yourself. They were children of the Cold War just as you, fledged beneath the shadow of the Backfire and Badger and Bear, pursued ever by the quiet menace of submarines below. They knew this business well.
The same could not be said of your other companions. Nagato had been laid down before the first true aircraft carrier was ever launched and when powered flight itself was not even a generation old. Radar had been little more than a laboratory footnote. Prinz Eugen was younger by nearly twenty years but even she had sunk years before the invention of the integrated circuit. For Prinz Eugen especially, now would be the only moment to warn her of what is to come.
‘Prinz Eugen, Enterprise - come in.’
‘I’m here!’
‘What’s the status on your turbines? Will they hold?’
‘They’re… hot. But they’re holding. I think I might be able to get number 3 back online soon. It was only shaken a bit - no serious damage.’
