Sara's War, Part 1: The Forgotten Warrior.

I shouldn't be here. The tall blonde woman thought as she approached the gates of Yokosuka. It should be someone else. Anyone else. She thought with melancholy. It should be my sister. She thought to her dear sister. Everyone had loved her. Her loss had been tragic and mourned. She had been destined to do so much and had been lost over a foolish mistake. Though cut down early in the war, her sister had been there when it counted. She had held the line. Lady Lex, Queen of the flattops.

Not so much her screw up twin sister, Saratoga... First that clusterfuck at Wake Island... She had been so close! Even if they couldn't have hoped to hold Wake, at least they could evacuate the Marines and the civilian workers trapped on the island. Almost there! And then the recall order had come. Two Japanese carriers had hit the island. Admiral Pye refused to risk one of his carriers over an island already lost.

And so Saratoga had been ordered to turn her back on those marines and civilians and run away to save herself.

Then had been the torpedoing two weeks later. Stupid! Four months laid up in a body and fender shop. Word of Coral Sea, where Lex had gone down. Yorktown had been hit but she'd been patched up quickly. Something big was in the works! Saratoga rushing out to Pearl Harbor, anxious, eager to get into the fight!

Only to find the battle over and Yorktown gone down like a hero from a Greek legend. Sent out with her wounds and then hit again and again and yet again until she finally succumbed, not to a single mighty foe, but from the cumulative hurts all of her enemies could throw at her. There had been a plan to head North and go after the carriers that had struck Dutch Harbor, but after losing Yorktown, it was decided that Saratoga was just not ready. Recalled again.

Some success at Eastern Solomons but then another torpedo and Saratoga would was back for more repairs. She would miss the Battle of Santa Cruz. Hornet had died hard in that battle.

There were no great carrier clashes in 1943 and by early 1944, younger, tougher carriers had arrived. Four of them named after her lost comrades of 1942, others with names like Essex, Franklin, Bunker Hill... what did the Navy need with an old thing like her? Training duty and refits meant she would miss the last great carrier battle of the war and then the last and greatest sea fight of all at Leyte Gulf. Finally she was put back on the line at Iwo Jima. And promptly knocked on her ass by a kamikaze. Back to the yard where she would be permanently outfitted for training duty even as the rest of the fleet faced the firestorm off Okinawa.

And then the war ended. Too old and obsolete and simply labeled surplus, Saratoga was chosen to die under the 'friendly' fire of the atomic bomb. She had seen the cartoons the Japanese had been putting out, showing Nagato facing death with dignity while she cried like a coward...

Even her return had been FUBAR! The navy so hard up that it called for her to come back. Admirals in their gold braid waiting as the drums beat and nothing happened...

It was three in the morning when the Ship girl Saratoga stumbled her way back into the world of the living. The dignitaries had all long since gone home, perhaps wondering just what had gone wrong. Late again. The only person in sight was a lone sentry who probably thought she was drunk. Hardly the entrance befitting a US Navy warship. Another screw up. She couldn't exactly get an appointment with CinCPac and say 'Oops! Sorry I'm late!'

~BULLSHIT!~

Saratoga froze at the sound of the annoyed voice in her head. ~Captain! I mean Admiral! Uh sir!~

~Stow it Sara! Call me Bill. Anyway, what's this nonsense you're carrying on about?~ The boss's voice was filled with fire.

~Sir. I...~ She began.

~You've always been one of the luckiest and best damned ships in the fleet! Right from the start! That treaty killed over thirty ships right on the ways or even still on the drawing board! And how many others scrapped! But they fought for you and you and Lexington survived. On your decks. That's where we learned our trade. Langley taught us we could fly. You and Lex showed us what we could do with those wings. You showed us what COULD be done even if we weren't all listening. Pearl? You did it long before the Japanese. Not your fault we didn't get the message.

And Wake? Don't ever blame yourself for that. Because they were right. You weren't ready to tangle with two Jap carriers. Not with what you had and not without effective backup. I know you would have fought hard, but losing you wouldn't have saved Wake. And yeah. Damned right you took your knocks but you always got back up! And you weren't the only one who missed Midway!. Laid up in the hospital for a damned skin disease! But it's the way the breaks go sometime. It was mostly your birds Yorktown carried out there anyway. Yes we lost good men and good ships. That happens in war. You can't keep it from happening. You do the best you can and go on because you have got no choice.

And what about that raid on Rabaul? The Japanese had SEVEN heavy cruisers massing in one of the best protected harbors in the Pacific and they were going to blow the holy hell out of the Bouganville landings and once they got out of Rabaul, I had no chance in Hell of stopping them! What I had was You and Princeton and Princeton only had half of your strike power. It was risky as Hell but I had no choice and by God! You came through! A raid against one of the most heavily defended harbors in the Pacific. Pulling off Pearl Harbor was child's play to what you did! And you did it! Four heavies damaged and the Japs pulled all seven. You saved thousands of lives.~

~Sir... That was just...~

~Part of the job? Maybe, but if that's true then you had better realize that the bad news also comes with the territory. You have an enemy that wants to win just as much as you do.

The world needs you Sara. But you know that. Hell! Here you are, without your rigging or anything and you managed to sneak all the way to Japan to get into the fight. So you go in there and you don't take any shit off anyone and if you ever need a spare pilot, Remember I had to get my wings before they'd let me take out the grandest lady in the fleet!~

~Yes sir! Thank you sir! I'll remember!~

~You do that. Now get going!~ The Admiral ordered before heading back into the beyond from which they had both come.

Saratoga at last smiled to herself. It wasn't as if they could do anything to her she hadn't gone through before.

***

"Commander Yarnell?" Sara rose from her seat as Secretary ship Nagato came out with a frown and a stern look on her face.

"Yes?"

"I am afraid there is a problem here. We cannot confirm that a Commander Sara Yarnell was dispatched here by the United States Navy in any capacity. Indeed; there is no evidence any such person exists."

"I see." Sara smiled and looked at the battleship with a twinkle in her eye as she hauled off and punched Nagato with all the force a 45,000 ton battlecruiser turned aircraft carrier could muster, knocking the surprised Battleship to the deck. "I owed you that one." Sara grinned. "USS Saratoga, CV-3 and I'm looking for an outfit that's fighting."