7 December 1941
Location: The Pacific Ocean, 500 km southeast of Pearl Harbour Naval Base.
Time: 0630
A huge fleet consisting of numerous naval vessels could be seen sailing toward the northwest. A bunch of destroyers led the way as scouts and sweepers. Followed by cruisers, battleships, and battlecruisers surrounding several aircraft carriers at the center.
On the deck of one of the battlecruisers, a tea party was held, with the hustle and bustle of maids seen around the main table.
"Your Majesty, we would have arrived at the base if you hadn't overslept yesterday," a lady in an elegant blue coat and blonde hair complained with a sigh.
"Ah come on Hood, I just overslept a bit." A little girl with a haughty expression reasoned to the complaining lady, Hood. This little girl was actually HMS Queen Elizabeth, the leader of the Royal Navy.
"Yeah, 'a bit', sure." Hood rolled her eyes.
The fleet was supposed to set sail seven hours earlier, but due to Queen Elizabeth's 'a bit of oversleeping', they had to delay the departure. And now, the fleet was hurriedly moving at fast speed to reach Pearl Harbor.
As they continued chatting, suddenly a clumsy maid with eyeglasses reported her findings to Queen Elizabeth.
"Apologize for interrupting your tea party, Your Majesty. But, we've just received a distress SOS signal from what appears to be a fishing boat," the maid reported nervously.
"What is a fishing boat doing in the middle of the ocean? Don't they know how dangerous Sirens are?" Queen Elizabeth sighed. She added, "Edinburgh, you go with Amazon and Suffolk and check out the fishing boat. Help them if necessary and return to formation quickly. We don't have much time."
"As you command, Your Majesty," the clumsy maid, Edinburgh, bowed a bit and tried to leave the deck when a blonde lady knight in red military dress stopped her.
"Your Majesty, please allow me to assist them," the lady knight proposed.
"Howe? Are you sure? Sending a battleship to rescue a fishing boat seems excessive, doesn't it, Warspite?" Queen Elizabeth directed the question to her most trusted advisor, HMS Warspite.
"It does, Your Majesty. But something bad might have happened to the fishing boat. They didn't use their radio to reach us but instead, they used an SOS signal. Something serious could have happened to them, we can't disregard such a possibility, Your Majesty," Warspite wisely spoke her mind.
"Alright, Howe, you'll join the rescue team. Be quick," Queen Elizabeth nodded and ordered.
"Understood, Your Majesty. We'll be back soon." The lady knight, HMS Howe, replied with a bow before leaving the deck with Edinburgh.
"Yes, you better be," Queen Elizabeth muttered, she was a bit curious about the fishing boat.
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XX-XX-XXXX
Location: Unknown.
Time: (Approx) 0630
"Oh they're coming!" a girl exclaimed when she saw four dots approaching her from the direction of the massive fleet she detected earlier.
This girl was USS Michael Monsoor. After sailing for hours from her initial position, she detected a large fleet formation on her radar. She considered radioing the fleet to ask for direction, but she decided to just send an SOS signal and looked at the fleet's reaction. She did this because she did not know if that fleet was friendly or hostile. Furthermore from the radar cross section emitted by the fleet, she found that there were several large vessels at the center of formation. It would be precarious for her if the fleet was hostile and decided to hunt her down.
Mo kept focusing her attention to the four dots on radar, noting their unusually small radar signatures. "They decided to answer my SOS by sending four of them here, eh? But why are their radar emissions so small?"
The radar signature of the four dots was weirdly small, as small as human to be exact. Mo thought, how could these four approach my position, which is in the middle of the ocean, with no boat or ship? It'd be stupid if they swim to come here, right? Could they be state-of-the-art stealth vessels? I'm also included in that category, after all.
"But as small as a human? That's hard to believe," she scoffed at such a possibility.
The dots continued approaching rapidly. This was when Mo received a radio transmission from what she thought was one of the dots.
[This is HMS Howe of the Royal Navy. By the grace of Her Majesty, we are here to answer your distress call and assist you.]
"Ohhh thank God! It's the Brits!" Mo relaxed her nerves after hearing the radio.
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Meanwhile, on the other end of the radio transmission…
"Howe, how is it?" a kansen with a maid outfit asked Howe. She was Suffolk, a heavy cruiser.
"I have sent the transmission. We're waiting for a response, if there's none, they might have broken their radio," Howe answered with a serious expression.
"That makes sense. B-but what if they're pirates!" Edinburg asked with a slightly frightened tone.
"We could just shoo them away. Don't worry, I am here." Howe reassured Edinburgh with a slight smile.
"I-if you say so, then." Looking at the confident Howe, Edinburgh began to calm down, a bit.
From the front of the formation, a kansen asked without turning around, "Hey lassies, other than pirates, what do you all think about a fishing boat that got lost in the middle of the ocean? Sounds fishy, don't you think?" This kansen was a destroyer, Amazon.
Just as Howe was about to reply, she received a radio transmission from the 'fishing boat'. "Everyone, quiet."
[Good Morning. This is USS Michael Monsoor, DDG-1001, of the United States Navy. Thank you for responding to my distress signal. I lost contact with my patrol squadron yesterday. We got separated and I've been lost ever since.]
Hearing the voice of a girl shocked the rescue team. They thought their rescue target was just an ordinary fishing boat. After all, in their radar they only detected a small size vessel. Furthermore, the girl identified herself as a kansen. The 'USS' prefix and DDG classification added to their confusion. And the United States Navy? They assumed the girl had misspoken and meant the Union of States instead.
"See? As I thought," Amazon proudly praised herself.
"But doesn't that mean she's from Eagle Union? And maybe a unique destroyer?" Edinburgh speculated.
"Most possibly. Alright everyone, let's meet her. Be careful of traps and ready your armaments. I'll inform her of our arrival," Howe instructed.
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Back to Mo…
[Copy that, DDG-1001, please kindly wait in your position. We are coming shortly.]
Mo stood on her front deck near her AUR Vertical Launch System. She was somewhat relieved hearing that they were from the Royal Navy. She thought maybe one of them knew her sister Lyn, who was stationed in Portsmouth. But that did not mean she was unprepared in case of these all being a trap. Even her Dark Eagle was ready to be launched at any given time.
Call me paranoid, but everything has been gone to the gutter since I woke up. I can't let myself sink at the start of the war, Mo thought.
Minutes passed, and the dots entered her visual range. Mo's expression turned from confusion to shock.
"They are truly just Humans! But what are those huge riggings around them!? And how can they walk on water!? This is getting more and more ridiculous.." Mo shouted as she was entrenched by what she saw.
"Arrgh! Questions.. So many questions.." She sighed loudly and tried to calm herself as she waved her arms to get the attention of the four girls.
She also noticed shocked expressions from the four girls when they saw her ship,but they quickly changed their expression and quickly approached the white ship.
As they came near her ship, Mo pointed to the helicopter deck, and the four girls nodded before jumping onto it. Now onboard, their expressions went back to a confused and bewildered state. Even more when Mo arrived at the helideck. Mo saw this and tried to initiate a conversation.
"Hello everyone, once again, I want to thank you for responding to my distress signal. As I told you before, something unfortunate happened to me, I got separated from my patrol squadron and got lost in the middle of nowhere. Sadly, my GPS also can't connect to the satellite service. Also please let me introduce myself again, I am USS Michael Monsoor, DDG-1001, of the United States Navy. I am the second ship of the Zumwalt-Class Guided Missile Destroyers. It's an honor to meet you all from the Royal Navy." With a friendly smile, Mo said these practiced lines clearly and confidently. Although inside, she was very nervous. The one that usually said something in this kind of situation was her older sister, Zumwalt, and then Mo would just add one of two things if needed. But her sister was not with her right now, she had to get herself together and do this herself.
"It's an honor to meet you as well, sorry but, may I ask what we should call you?" The tallest girl in the red military dress also smiled a bit as she asked Mo. Mo could feel a dignified aura when the girl spoke. But contrary to that, her voice still retained a youthful character and was somewhat cute.
"You can call me Michael or Monsoor," Mo replied, extending her hand for a handshake.
"Alright, Miss Monsoor. Let me introduce myself as well as my team. I am HMS Howe of the Royal Navy. I am the fifth ship of the King George V-Class Battleship." Howe accepted Mo's handshake. She then proceeded to introduce the rescue team.
"The maid with glasses is HMS Edinburgh of the Town-Class Light Cruiser. The other maid is HMS Suffolk, a County-Class Heavy Cruiser. As for the last one, she is HMS Amazon of the A-Class Destroyer. We're all from the Royal Navy."
After Mo heard their introduction, she maintained her calm and friendly demeanor. But inside, her mind went into overdrive to digest the information.
Woah.. aren't those WW2 era warships?
How can they introduce themselves as such?
Or maybe they have the same condition as me? They were a ship and then somehow gained a human body. Hmm, that might explain it…
But why WW2 warships? They should've long been decommissioned and scrapped.
It'd be stupid if the Brits rebuilt all these old ships just to give them human bodies.
Why don't they just use their modern fleet?
Is this their fetish? The Brits love their history so much so they rebuilt their old ships and gave them human bodies just to interact with them.
No No No, enough with this train of thoughts. There is no use speculating around. Let's try to extract some information from them.
Although inside she felt she spent quite some time thinking and processing information. Outside, time was barely moving. This was thanks to her top-notch computing system, her brain's processing speed was extremely quick.
"Oh I've heard about you, especially Miss Howe's older sister and her accomplishment in the Hunt for Bismarck. That was impressive," Mo praised sincerely. Although actually, she had something planned.
"Oh why, thanks. I am sure my older sister will be happy to hear that from you," Howe smiled happily. She had not expected for the kansen she had never heard and met to know about her sister's feat.
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Around eight months ago, some Iron Blood kansens were encroaching on the Royal Navy's shipping routes in the Denmark Strait. When a patrol squadron was sent to confirm the intention of Iron Blood's kansens, Iron Blood announced that they had laid claims on this sea and islands surrounding it. They then said they were in the Denmark Strait because they were "protecting" their territorial waters. Hearing this blatant provocation, the Royal Navy sent some of their kansens to the strait to exercise the freedom of navigation in international waters. Tensions escalated rapidly to the point some shells were fired. Luckily there were no casualties. The Royal Navy attempted to send a formal complaint to the Iron Blood Command, but they had no channel to do so. The tension around the strait remained high.
It was not until a scout plane from one of the Royal Navy's Aircraft Carriers spotted Bismarck in the vicinity of Denmark Strait. The Royal Navy quickly deployed kansens to "hunt" Bismarck, aiming to ask for clarification and responsibility. One of those kansens was HMS King George V, Howe's older sister. Her mission was to prevent Bismarck from reaching Iron Blood homeports until she could be asked to open channels for discussions.
Long story short, King George V was able to meet face to face with Bismarck. The two argued about the situation in the Denmark Strait. But during their "talk", Bismarck succeeded in breaching the Royal Navy's blockade. It could have been an easy escape for Bismarck if not for Ark Royal's air wings and George's relentless barrage. The result was one torpedo hit to Bismark's rudder and one 14' shell hit to the aft turret.
Since then, Iron Blood had gone eerily calm and silent.
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Mo, however, was not aware of these details. The version she knew was the one that Bismarck was sunk by the combined effort of Royal Navy vessels. She threw the previous praise to test whether she was still in the same world. This series of events that happened to her ever since she got a human body was so absurd that thinking she was transported to a different world didn't seem far-fetched. Therefore she needed information.
Hearing Howe's response, Mo concluded that Howe was aware of the incident and so far the history was still in line with the one she knew, 'The Hunt for the Bismarck' happened. She commenced another test.
"Also, sorry for the loss of your other sister, Prince of Wales. Force-Z shouldn't have met such an end." Mo said, her voice tinged with respect and sadness.
Alright, let's see, thought Mo as she expected the reaction from Howe.
"Eh, what do you mean? My sister is fine. She should be in Pearl Harbour right now. Just yesterday we reported our departure from the Home Islands to the Commander and my sister directly. Force-Z? What's that?" Howe's expression shifted back to a confused look.
Oh gosh, nevermind then, Mo thought to herself, shaking her head mentally.
Alright, so I was transported to another world, I guess?