Kanmusu Struggle - A Kantai Collection Story

Premonition

March 16th 2016, 1200 hours [12:00 PM]

After being thrown into another dimension and already being brutally attacked by an unknown enemy, our heroes now find themselves in Truk island, occupied by Japanese forces...but reception wasn't what they'd expect...

"So, Yamato...could you tell us how exactly you're...that?", Roland asked, pointing at the homonimous ship at the port.

"Don't you know? We're KanMusu...Shipgirls."

"Eh? What kind of thing is that?"

"You should know about it...America has their fleet too..."

"No, we don't. At least...not the America from where we came...", Herbert added.

"That reminds me...you said that a patrol found those...Abyssals, you said...what are they?", Amir asked.

"We don't know exactly, but...we were created because of them. And since you guys know nothing about it, I'll explain the details. In the 1930's, the world was on the brink of a World War, but a new enemy appeared from deep beneath the seas...the first Abyssal vessel was spotted in 1936. No flag, no country, but attacking anything and anyone that stood in its way. More started appearing each year. In January 2nd 1942, key naval bases in the United States, England, France, Italy, Germany and Japan were targeted at the same time by an immense fleet, with very well coordinated attacks. The Intelligence of each country knew about the Abyssals, but they could do little to prevent the bloodshed...thousands of people perished in that tragic day.", She explained, with a bit of sadness in her voice.

"Oh, man...timeline went completely off the charts here!", Roland said.

"In 1947, America managed to capture one Abyssal vessel, alive and intact; two years later, all six countries created an intergovernmental scientific group to study and learn about them as much as they could: their technology, biology, physiology...and find a way to defeat them.", Yamato continued explaining.

"Looks a bit like Roswell...", Herbert commented.

"What?", She tilted her head, confused.

"Forget about it. So, what did they find out?", He asked.

"The Abyssals weren't exactly more powerful than us, but because they were much faster, we couldn't hit them with our weapons...the time it took for a battleship to aim her guns at the enemy, they've already circled and flanked us flawlessly.", She said. "They were faster, had better handling and their guns also reload faster...comparing two nearly identical warships of the same class, one conventional and one Abyssal is like comparing a turtle with a rabbit."

"And somehow they were also invisible to our radar systems...our ship couldn't attack them properly because we couldn't get a lock on.", Roland sighed.

"Huh? You mean you guys use automatic targetting?"

"Affirmative. Usually radar, but we can also use infrared...tracking by their heat.", Herbert said.

"Oh my, that's quite ahead of us!"

"Yes, ma'am. Our aircraft for example even possess equipment like night vision and terrain following radar, so basically we can fly very low and very fast day or night, rain or shine and essentially sneak up on the target...we can also see at night too. But in order for us to use our assets to the fullest, we need fuel and permission from the leader of this base...is there an Admiral nearby?" Roland said.

"Actually, battleship Nagato is the current Commander of the base. Unfortunately our Admiral disappeared in the sea a few weeks ago...Nagato was his secretary, so she knows all the procedures, but even so...we don't have a proper leader...", She lowered her head.