This was an iron wall—a fight where you kill a hundred and lose a hundred thousand of your own.
But with three million under her, Abyssal Musashi could afford the loss.
The Abyssals had used massed-air tactics before, but never this extreme: turning bombers and torpedo planes into meat shields, abandoning offense entirely.
Ranger's voice tightened. "Lexington, what now?"
"Targeted flagship kills are off the table," Lexington said, mind clear and steady. "All six groups break apart and switch to 'nuclear-style' area bombing. Drop, then climb for the stratosphere and exfil. Regroup for the next strike!"
For decapitating a flagship, the "poison-arrow" stab is king. Area bombing spreads damage wide—lower-trained Abyssals die in sheets, but an Abyssal flagship outside the blast core, or not hit repeatedly, has a decent chance to live.
Lexington was shelving behead strikes to grind down three million Abyssals instead.
A contest of iron wills: you want to attrit us? Fine—we'll attrit you. Let's see who lasts.
"Roger!" came the chorus. The formations fanned out and began a rolling carpet of explosions.
Bismarck watched new planes bloom into being around Lexington's carriers, circling like celebrating sprites.
"Over a hundred," Z17 said, rabbit-ear sonar twitching, a touch grim. "Frontline losses are heavy."
Taihou's mirror squadrons never replenish. These new aircraft were "true" replacements—aluminum burned to refill what the front had lost.
Which meant the strike wings up north had likely bled away a third of their strength.
Veneto set her coffee on the base of a turret, straightened in her seat on the rig, and narrowed her eyes to the north.
Even across more than three hundred nautical miles, the chained blossoms of fire and light were plain to see.
The sound, though—the rolling murmur of thunder and flak—had smeared into a distant rumble by the time it reached them, blended with another droning undertone.
That rumble was the Abyssal air arm on the move.
Her hand slid along a cold barrel. "The Abyssals' counterpunch… is here."
Boom.
The last shock front of the bombing hurled up a thousand-meter wall of water. The blast-driven surf tore storm and cloud to shreds.
From the boiling fireball, Abyssal Musashi lurched free. She glanced up—Abyssal aircraft and flak curtained the sky. The enemy bombers were gone, already hunting for their next window.
Gold sunlight spilled down. Musashi flicked her hand as if to push it away.
She didn't need to bother. The Fortress Princess threw back her head and roared, and thunderheads and hard rain welled from nowhere, sealing the heavens again.
"Clear skies help our AA," Musashi snarled at her.
"I don't like the sun," the Fortress Princess said, unbothered. "And what difference does sight make? We're hosing the sky anyway."
Musashi choked on a retort.
The Airfield Princess came striding up, eyes on the formations struggling to hold through the quake-like swells, and on Base 544, rocked near to capsizing by mountainous waves.
"They won't try close-in strikes again," she said coolly. "If they're not aiming for flagships but for area kills, they can just toss from high altitude."
For a heartbeat Musashi felt alone. She even missed Hindenburg and the Whip-Winged Flagship; with them, at least she wouldn't be this outnumbered in her own council—at least there'd be someone to answer back.
She crushed the thought and rounded on the Airfield Princess. "So you're in charge of air defense—this is your 'defense'?"
She jabbed a finger at the heaving black sea. Who knew how many Abyssals had just been blasted to foam; by Musashi's rough count, not fewer than a hundred thousand.
It was obscene.
She'd heard the reports: in the South Seas, Tirpitz had gone three-on-one against level hundred Abyssal flagships, while Lexington—alone—took half a day to wipe out Barbarossa's hundreds of thousands.
Back then she thought it was a fairy tale. Now? If Lexington had today's partners back then, why half a day—one or two hours and that horde would've been ash and spray.
[End of Chapter]