The Silent Hunter Chapter 3: All Boarders Away

MorgothII: Takes place at the beginning of the summer of the Titan War.

I am sleeping when I hear it. A ringing bell that connects the crew sleeping quarters to command. I quickly getup and grab the intercom system. If someone is calling, then it must be important. "Rear Admiral Riley here," I say. The title Rear Admiral is mainly to show how high ranking I am. "This is command. We have located an enemy vessel about twenty miles out. Your ship is to intercept her." I am a bit taken aback by these words. "Intercept? Do you mean for us to board her?" I ask. "Correct. You are to eliminate the enemy crew, take any documents, maps, or codes of interest for us, then scuttle the ship. Command, out."

I rush over to the alarm bell I had placed there before. I start ringing it loudly. "Get up! This is an alarm! You're not on vacation! Get up!" I shout. Sailors stumbled out of their hammocks and scrambled to attention. "Eng, get to the ship and get her started!" I order. "Yes sir!" Robert says as he leads the engine crew to the boat. "All hands, get to you battle stations!" I shout. With that, we all scramble for the boat. I am the last one on the ship as we pull out. I go below. "Helm, take us down as soon as possible," I say, my voice returning to its usual manner. "I want all officers to meet near my quarters," I say as I head off to my bunk area.

Five minutes the officers are assembled. "About ten minutes ago, we received word of an enemy vessel roughly twenty miles out from our position. Command feels that this could be a scout for a new sea born invasion. We will disable the ship. After that, we will board her, kill the crew, retrieve any documents or maps, and finally scuttle her. I will lead the first boarding party. Any questions?" I ask the group. No one asks any questions. "Good. XO, get the first boarding party ready. Have all hands stand at high alert. Dismissed," I say and the group disperses to their stations. I grab my long sword and strap it's sheath to my hip. I then walk into the control room forty minutes later and stand behind the sonar operator.

"Any surface contacts yet?" I ask. "Nein," the sonar operator answers back in German. I am about to head other to the hydrophone operator when the sonar operator calls out. "Sir! Vessels eighteen degrees northwest of our position!" I race other to the periscope and raise it up since we are already at periscope depth. I swivel it around till it is facing in the position the contact has been spotted. It's a cargo ship. I cannot confirm that it is our target because- wait! "Surface the vessel! Get the deck and AA guns on bearing of target! Signal general quarters now! And tell command that we are engaging target! Have that encoded too!" I order upon seeing the snake woman standing watch on the vessel. The words send a fury of scrambled movement. The general quarter alarm starts blaring and the intercom comes to life. "All hands, general quarters, general quarters. This is not a drill. Prepare to surface," it says.

"All boarders, assemble for action!" The boarding party will be fifteen men. Each one is armed with a MP-40 submachine gun and for some, a grenade or two. I get up to the conning tower when we surface. "Deck gun! Target the radio room first! Blast it to hell on my mark! AA guns, prepare to fire at the bridge and any enemy sailors that you see." I order the gun crews. They rush to execute my orders. "Deck gun in position, sir!" I wait a few minutes so we can get closer. "Now! All guns, open fire!"

With this order, all hell breaks loose. A few shells from the 105 gun virtually decimates the radio room, leaving the ship with only us for company. The twin 20 mm guns on the starboard side and the 37 mm gun then open fire. The 37 mm mainly fires on the bridge, shattering glass and destroying controls and killing the bridge crew that has not taken cover. When enemy soldiers and sailors come rushing out to defend their vessel, they are wait with a wall of steel. The twin 20 mm gun rakes the deck with lethal fire that kills or wounds any that foolishly exposes themselves from the limited cover of the ship.

"Launch the landing ropes! Boarders, are you ready?" I ask. The response I get is a nod from the team leader. More sailors get on deck and toss special rope towards the other ship. At the end of each rope, there is a grappling hook. Some miss and fall into the water but enough land on the ship and its railing for our purpose. "Pull us in closer!" I command. The sailors that are holding onto the rope start to pull it back, slowly moving the enemy ship closer to the U-184. "Get ready to move out!" I shout to the boarders. I draw my sword in anticipation of the upcoming battle. When the two ships are almost touching each other side by side, I order for the boarding ladder to be landed. This is done quickly. "All guns, cease fire, cease fire! All boarders away!" I shout as I run up the ladder.

The fifteen boarders that accompany me are just behind me. A snake woman sees me and charges at me. I block her sword stroke easily. I flick my wrist and send her sword sailing into the ocean. I then swing my own long sword and she is reduced to dust. The other boarders fire their submachine guns and cut down the remaining defenders on the deck. "You five take the bridge and hold it at all costs! The rest of you are with me! We're going to make our way to the engine room and sweep the ship for remaining resistance! Understood? Good, then move out!" I order and we do so.

I lead my ten men in a thorough search of the ship. First we search the ruined radio room. Our search in that room yields some documents that seem to be about codes, as well as some maps and a list of some of the enemy ships. I gesture to two more of my men. "Take these back to the sub pronto. This is vital information and you will protect it. Go." With that the two sailors rush back to the sub. "Come on, let's move." I order the remaining eight boarders.

We quickly sweep the rest of the ship, every now and then running into one or two enemy sailors or monsters. Soon we are near the engine compartment. A snake woman and a demigod stand watch. I gesture for silence as I move up to the closer demigod. A quick thrust with my long sword silences him before he even sees me. The monster sees me and is about to raise the alarm. It dies in her throat as I virtually slice her in half.

I give the all clear hand gesture and the rest of my men form up behind me. It appears that whoever is on the other side of the room made sure to lock it. I simply do the quickest and simplest method to unlock it. I gesture to the demo man who is of our group to place a breeching charge on the door. He does so and sets off a five second delay. I gesture with my hands to move back. Everyone is barely in cover when the charge blows the door off. We charge into the room, where it seems that the remaining enemy sailors where barricading themselves in. We start to rapidly cut down everyone in the room. I parry the blow of an enemy demigod and swing my own. This is blocked by his sword. I feint to the left, and he believes it. I suddenly lunge at his now exposed right side and sink my blade into it. The body goes limp as I withdraw my blade.

The whole thing lasts about four minutes. I see that the intercom to the bridge is still working and walk over to it. "Eng to bridge, we have taken the engine room. Have you taken the bridge?" I ask. "Ay captain," one of the five boarders I sent to take the bridge responds. "Good. Now, sweep the ship for any more survivors and then move all bodies over to the engine room. Eng, out," I say. About eighteen minutes later, the ship has been cleared and all the bodies are in the engine room. I have Robert come on board with some Greek fire charges. Once he gets there, I immediately have him starts placing it around the compartment. I plan to destroy her engines and set her on fire first. Then, when U-184 pulls away, I'll order her to fire maybe five rounds below the water line, the reason to cause her to flood rapidly.

"Charges are in place, sir," Robert informs me. I nod. "Good. Give me the detonator. Then get everyone back onto the boat and have them load torpedo tube 1 for firing. Understood?" I ask him. He nods, gives me the detonator, and rushes off to fulfill my orders. I head up to the top deck. When I get there, I stop briefly to look at the side of the conning tower of my vessel. It is a blue dragon rearing up on its back legs and its mouth is open. In each of the two arms in the air is a torpedo. This is my symbol that shows that this is my command.

"Already sir. We're just waiting for you," Robert informs me. I just nod and walk over to the vessel. I remain standing on top of the conning tower. "Remove all cable connecting us," I order and a bunch of sailors start to either cut or untie the rope connecting to the U-boat. I order the ship to then move away from the vessel but to turn so we are facing its side. I press the button on the detonator. This causes the Greek fire charges in the engine room to explode. The reason I had the bodies placed there was to make sure that they would be incinerated. The worst thing that could happen would be the US Navy searching for my ship. I then order the vessel to pull away and turn around to face her side.

Once we are facing her at a safe distance, I give the order. "Fire torpedo one!" I watch as the torpedo leaves a slight white wake as it travel under the water. Just when it is about to hit, I duck my head to make sure I don't blind myself. I hear the explosion and when I look up, I see that the ship seems to be taking water near the forward section of the bow. I then head down to the control room. "Take us home. Send an encoded message to command. Tell them, boarding was successful and we have recovered some documents and are heading home. XO, you have helm," I say as I head to my bunk to resume my sleeping that was interrupted.

Later

As we pull up the vessel's holding pen, I can see Chiron and Annabeth waiting for us. I grab the bag containing the documents that were retrieved during the boarding. When we dock and I get off, I hand other the bag, give a brief description of the mission, had off to sleep for a long time.

MorgothII: And finished. This chapter had taken me sometime so, please, please, please, Read and Review. Until next time, as they say in Russia, dos vidanya!