The lost battleship of the southern trench

Chapter 28

Timeskip 4 hours, time 7:25 AM, location Hong Kong

Musa alongside the rest of the ship girl fleet could be seen now out in the harbor, in battle formation. Wales, Chitose, and Chiyoda could visibly be seen to still have damage from the night before. Now they could see the Trench Abyssal fleet in the distance only 4 kilometers away. The three hulking masses of the Ra-class could be seen underwater, with their flaming eyes glowing through the water. Then at almost the same time the three surfaced, and let out blood curdling roars. Then the ship girls noticed the massive swarm of Banshees flying above the fleet, some of them tried counting how many there were. Most came at about 1,000 in number, which terrified them.

But now Musa felt the same odd feeling from Cagayan. When she looked ahead, she saw Southern War Princess at the head of the fleet, alongside Bonin, all the Ei-class, and Lau-class. The monster Abyssals surrounded the entire fleet, and even they alone outnumbered the ship girls 3 to 1.

But then Akagi gave an order that at first made the fleet think she was crazy, but then gave them hope "we need to get into close combat with them!" She yelled before continuing "Remember we have the Disruptors, if we can get them on, then their fleet will fall to pieces. Stay away from close combat of those three monsters, but if you do try and get Disruptors attached to them! Focus fire first on the monsters, whittle them down before moving in!"

"Right!" Atago now cheered "we've taken on worse before! Let's show them not to underestimate us!" Now the rest of the ship girls cheered as their morale was boosted, from Akagi and Atago's words. Even Musa who had seen the destruction a Ra-class could do, felt like they had a good chance.

Now across the harbor the Trench Abyssal fleet saw the ship girls cheering. Southern guessed that they thought they had a chance, which actually pleased her a bit, she'd feel very guilty fighting an enemy who was in complete despair. Like all the others, she felt the presence of Musa, and wondered who she was. But a ship further away caught her interest, it was the missile frigate from before.

It was a Type 054A Frigate, built before the Sirens arrived, and was one of the few remaining Chinese missile warships. Since it was useless against Sirens and Abyssals, its purpose now was a ferry, though its weapons stayed alongside it. But Southern knew nothing of its history, or what it was, except for a warship. But she noticed something odd surrounding the ship, red flames seemed to come from the front of the superstructure. But she soon turned back to look at the ship girls as she just thought that the humans had an accident and it was just on fire.

She was about to give the order to attack, when Yammy walked up beside her, in her fox form, and said "Don't underestimate them. Despite the overwhelming power you have, ship girls have gone up against beings like you before" now she paused as she gazed at the ship girl fleet, and saw them cheering "oh, how I wish the barrier didn't block me from speaking. Oh..." now she stopped talking, Southern presuming that the barrier stopped her from what she was about to say.

Now Southern sighed, as she shifted her gaze over the ship girls "Everyone! Let's go!"

Now Ranna, Raffel, and Ramka roared out in the standard Ra-class roar that sounded across the entire harbor. Then the rest of the fleet joined in with one loud battle cry, as they shifted to full speed towards the ship girls, but their orderly formation fell apart. The Trench Abyssals for so long had relied on brute force, that they never needed to use super strict formations, so the order stayed disorderly.

It was not long before the first shots were fired, coming first from the three Ra-class, then followed by the rest of the fleet. The Banshees swirling overhead roared as they now swarmed over the battlefield, and almost in an instant achieved air superiority.