"Damn! There's a lot of them!" Hornet cursed as she launched another squadron to counter the numerous Siren aircraft attacking their group.
"Hornet we need to get out of here!" Pennsylvania shouted as she, along with Maryland and West Virginia, fired another salvo on the surrounding Siren battleships.
The battleships are currently trying to protect Vincennes, Minneapolis, and the injured destroyers from being permanently sunk by the Sirens often by directly blocking shells from hitting the injured.
Hornet dodged the bomb dropped on her. "We can't! They have sealed off all our escape routes!"
"Shit!" Pennsylvania cursed as she continued firing.
"Where's Enterprise's group?" Lexington asked.
Hornet noticed a Siren plane diving towards Lexington from behind lining up to drop a bomb on the unsuspecting shipgirl.
"Watch out!" Hornet rushed towards Lexington and pushed her out of the way. The bomb missed both shipgirls, but exploded near Hornet giving her some minor injuries.
"Hornet are you alright?" Lexington asked.
"Don't worry, it's just a scratch"
"Planes coming in from then north-west!" Downes warned the group making the three Eagle Union carriers look towards the direction she indicated.
Hornet clicked her tongue. "As if there is not enough of them already!"
The three carriers readied to launch the remainder of their aircraft in a final bid to repel the additional planes coming their way. They resolved themselves to at least bring down as much of the Sirens with them.
As they are getting ready, Hornet noticed the familiar markings of both the Eagle Union and Sakura Empire on the planes. "Wait! They're one of ours!"
Everyone in the fleet immediately looked up and breathed a sigh of relief as they realized that reinforcements have now come to their aid.
The newly arrived planes immediately engaged the Sirens with the fighters aggressively engaging the Siren planes while the dive bombers, and torpedo bombers attacked and dealt substantial damage to the ships.
In a few moments, larger explosions rocked the Siren's ships as the task force led by the fifth carrier division of the Sakura Empire girls made their appearance. The newly arrived shipgirls successfully managed to shift the Siren's to them.
"Hornet-san sorry we're late" Shoukaku communicated through the radio as she is currently at a distance away from the battle.
"No your timing couldn't be better" Hornet replied with both glee and exhaustion evident in her voice.
"It's a relief you guys came" Lexington added. "We're almost at a breaking point"
"Don't get careless now. We're not done yet" Zuikaku reminded everyone. Although the arrival of the fifth carrier division's group boosted their numbers, Hornet's group is both injured and tired so they are still outmatched against the Sirens.
Explosions occurred everywhere on the battlefield as the Kongou sisters along with Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia mercilessly counterattacked.
The combined Eagle Union, and Sakura Empire planes slowly gained air superiority, but still struggled due to the large number of Siren aircraft in the area.
The Hellcats and Zeros are doing most of the work of clearing the airspace over the area. The P51s meanwhile took care of the Siren bombers preventing most of them from releasing their payloads on the shipgirls.
"No wonder Hornet and Lexington got overwhelmed" Zuikaku commented on the situation.
"Zuikaku let's focus first on the Siren carriers"
"Understood nee-chan"
----------
Back with Enterprise's group. They are currently resting on the beach after repelling the Sirens that attacked them earlier. The attacking force is much smaller compared to the fleet that attacked Hornet's group so they were able to win with minimal casualties.
"Everyone we're immediately heading towards Hornet's group" Enterprise turned to her group.
"Are we gonna leave this island?" Cleveland asked.
"We should assume that the Sirens already know what we're doing. Splitting up will just make us easy targets" Enterprise reasoned as she released multiple scout planes and had them fly East and try to find Hornet's group.
The locals in the island hearing their conversation got worried that their situation will go back to waiting for outside aid while being at the mercy of the Sirens surrounding the island. The waters around them finally got liberated after all.
"Don't worry" Enterprise reassured the local leader. "We'll contact Guam and have them send more shipgirls here to protect this area"
"Thank you very much" The local leader sighed in relief. "Our people are tired of being isolated for years so we are very grateful for your presence here"
Enterprise and the rest of the group smiled and further reassured the locals the Azur Lane will defend all the areas they liberate.
---
After their brief conversation with the local populace, the group immediately set out east while Enterprise's scout planes searched for her sister's group. Fortunately, they haven't encountered any Sirens yet, but at the same time the scouts haven't yet either so they still don't have an idea where Hornet and the others got ambushed.
"To all units. Operation Leapfrog has been compromised. Guam has been attacked. I repeat Operation Leapfrog has been compromised. Guam has been attacked. All units retreat immediately."
A message from Guam base came through their radio communication. This made everyone in the group extremely worried since it is very possible that they are now effectively surrounded by the Sirens, and adding to that is everyone in Hornet's group will likely need help and the only base that they can go to right now is Guam.
There is also the fact that neither Akagi, nor Shoukaku has updated them on the status of retaking the waters around Palau. They assumed that they were also attacked and are forced to retreat.
Enterprise clicked her tongue as she took in the grave situation they are currently in. They had no choice but to hope that they make it in time to help Hornet's group then make it out of there.
She then launched all of her aircraft and ordered all of them to go straight towards Hornet's location, risking her group being easily overwhelmed by enemy aircraft if they get attacked.
A few couple minutes in the planes are within visual range can see the raging battle. She initially panicked that they will not make it in time as they are still a couple of kilometers away, but after a while she felt relief after she noticed Sakura Empire aircraft in the fray.
"Everyone, Hornet's group is now being helped by the Sakura Empire" Enterprise announced to the great relief of everyone in the group.
"I'm so glad" Cleveland sighed. "Guess we'll make it in time.
"How did the Sakura Empire make it there that fast?" Denver asked.
"I don't know, but their arrival gave us valuable time" Enterprise said with glee evident in her voice.
Enterprise then ordered her planes to join in the fray as well to further boost the offense already being mounted by the Sakura Empire, and the remaining Eagle Union shipgirls still able to fight.
----------
"We have planes coming in from the West!" Suzutsuki warned everyone.
"On it!" Zuikaku faced towards the direction and readied to launch more fighters. She also ordered a good portion of the fighters she already has in the air to intercept the bogeys.
After a few minutes, Zuikaku's fighters are now within range of the unknown squadrons and started to make an attack run.
The unknown aircraft, realizing what's going on, made evasive maneuvers to avoid getting shot down, but unfortunately four of them are hit before Zuikaku realized they are Eagle Union aircraft and ordered her fighters to go back.
"This is Enterprise. The planes are my squadrons don't shoot!" Enterprise broadcasted through radio since. She didn't speak to anyone in particular as she doesn't know which of the Sakura Empire fleet the planes came from.
"Oh Grey Ghost sorry about that. We couldn't risk having more of the enemy on us"
"Oh it's you Zuikaku. It's fine, I'm glad you got there first. How's Hornet and the others?"
"They're all injured so we need to get out of here right away"
"Alright. I'll have Cleveland and her sisters aid you there while I stop at my current position" Enterprise started laying out her plans for retreat.
"Slowly move towards me while I'll do my best to support from here. After that I'll cover your rear as you guys escort Hornet and the others to Guam as fast as you can"
"Guess we have no other choice huh?" Zuikaku and the others have heard of the broadcast from Guam, so they also know the current situation in the base. As it is the fastest route to an available dock, they have no other choice but to head there then transfer the wounded back to the Azur Lane base.