Georgia POV
I paused for a moment, securing my prize within Scooters cockpit as I cruised away from the last of the enemy vessels. I hadn't been able to pinch an 8" gun for Countess, apparently it had been shot off. I WAS, however, able to get some bits that she could probably use to fix up her voice betterer! and YES that's a word.
"No it's not."
Shut up Captain, with your stupid logic.
I settled down to the bottom of the river again as I concentrated on my drones, well, drone. I wasn't anywhere near good enough to look through more than one at a time, I'd tried and if one of my eyes wasn't jammed in its socket I'd have gone cross-eyed. I focused on the one headed straight downriver."Let's see what we have here... Got some Destroyers, LOT of Destroyers actually... Oh, my, goodness." That was... a lot of ships. Waaaaay too many for me to deal with, maybe I should relocate, like, now-ish. Before I disconnected though, I spotted the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen. Little mouthy baseballs with whirlygigs! they had a rear rotor as a tail as well! They bobbed along in the air ponderously and I just about died just looking at them. At least until I told my Captain, who took a look, my enthusiasm dimmed somewhat when she told me they were ASW Helicopters.
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"Sea-kings most likely, we probably don't have to worry about their sonar, but if they have magnetic anomaly detectors we'll likely be in trouble."
"Magna-what now?" My Captain sighed.
"Basically? its magnetic field survey equipment, was used in the '30s to find ore deposits. Was militarized to find subs through their ferrous magnetic field."
"T-That's not gonna be a problem is it? Am I a ferrous? Should we get out of here?" I wasn't pirate treasure! I didn't want to be found by a fancy metal detector!
"Normally? No. It's only useful when a sub is near the surface, and it usually depends on the size." I sighed in relief at that, we were on the bottom of the river, and I was teeny! "But we are in hilariously shallow water right now, I'd want to be at LEAST 200 feet down, and our actual ship-hull is absolutely massive."
"Are you calling me fat?" I said indignantly.
"No, big-hulled." Oh, that was better. But regardless, we needed to move. If those Abyssal whirlygigs were basically big metal detectors I'd just have to stay under the sea mines and avoid being directly under them, right? I paused, waiting to see if the little pee-wee Captain girl that acted as my semi-sense of logic would interfere, she didn't. That meant my plan wasn't stupid! I quickly motored underneath the nearest mine, practically hugging the mooring box-thing on the bottom just as the helicopters arrived along with the leading element of Destroyers, the Destroyers parked their butts a few hundred feet out from the field, depth charge launchers facing it, while the helicopters moved forwards.
I saw little white pill-things things drop from some of the helicopters as the rest began sweeping in a grid pattern above, slowly working their way towards me. The objects submerged themselves, coming down slowly as they drifted to the bottom, they were long tubes, white.
"Active sonar buoys, pretty-much useless against us unless you make too much noise, most likely searching for diesel submarines, they don't quite know what we are." I nodded as one dropped very close to me, I stood stock-still. It sat there, menacingly.
'Ping' oh I didn't like that sound, not one bit.
'Ping'
I don't think it noticed me though, I sighed in relief-
'Splash!'
'Ping'
I looked up, my own sonar suddenly showing a contact above me. I almost soiled myself when I saw a depth charge drifting downwards. "I thought you said their sonar was crap!" I yelled at my Captain mentally, as I Scooted off to another mooring as quickly as I could. Not before the charge detonated.
...
Oh my god, whew, they were just detonating the Naval mine I was under. The chain, what had helped float it having exploded, drifted down to the bottom behind me. Luckily the charges were set to go off well-above me, had I been any closer to the surface though... Now I was faced with a problem. The only reason the searching Sea-Kings hadn't found me was the sea-mines I was hiding under, but they were detonating said mines with the Destroyer's depth charges, removing my cover. so I had to keep ahead of the depth charges while staying under the-
A sonar buoy bounced off my head.
'Ping!'
"Crap" I muttered, before immediately covering my mouth with both hands. I looked at the little white pill, my single working eye round as a saucer.
'Ping' 'Poong-
"Nope!" I snatched and stuffed the buoy into my mouth and crunched down, quickly chewing it into an unrecognizable mass. I quickly moved on to the next mooring, using directions from my UAV operators (I needed to focus down here) to avoid passing under one of the sweeping Sea-Kings. Not a moment too soon, as there were MORE Depth charges this time, not just detonating the Mine I'd been under, but a couple drifting down to the riverbed where I'd been, blowing up he mooring box and turning that area into a clouded muddy mess from all the mud kicked up into the water.
Well, now they knew for certain I was nearby, I'd better hurry. I waited for another opening in the search pattern, hopping from mooring to mooring. Keeping ahead of the Destroyers as they made progress into the minefield. Meanwhile more buoy's dropped ahead of me.
"Ping" "Ping"
Suddenly, as I darted between moorings, a Sea-King changed direction suddenly, sweeping right across me as I swore I could feel its gaze on me, like the burning eye of Sauron. I abandoned subtlety for now, raising my speed to a full 20 knots to relocate as the Sea-King seemed to hover in place for a moment.
"Splash!"
"Fish in the water!" My Captain sounded very worried, so I was worried.
"What kind?"
"Sea-Kings have Mk 46's, they have acoustic homing, get to a mooring and shut the hell up!" OK, rude. Nonetheless I scrambled (swam) to the nearest point, watching as the torpedoes cut the water and passed me by within the span of a few meters, before carrying on for another hundred, gradually sinking into the riverbed and exploding with a muted 'whump'.
"Pin-"
I ate this buoy as well before my Captain dared to whisper. "We are lucky, these aren't the Mod A's, the old 46's had trouble in shallow water like this, the torps wont go far before they sink into the bottom." That was reassuring, but still deadly if they were launched close enough to me.
"Ping"
I nodded as I eyed the encroaching Destroyers. One of these days I'd have to ask how my Captain knew so much, probably came with the territory. I should put some torps into the lead Destroyers and bolt, it'll cause enough of a ruckus they'll be too busy to notice us haring off. I lined up a shot with Scooter and the Wonder Twins, the Destroyers had cleared the mines between us already, so I didn't need to worry about them attracting my Mark 48's.
"Ping"
I put my fish in the water and booked it, I was told by my operators that the Sea-Kings were converging on my firing point. I turned back to look-
And smacked into a mooring chain. I disentangled myself with a muttered curse.
"Ping" "Pooong"
"SplashSplashSplash!"
I didn't need my Captain's warning this time, swerving to the side before cutting my propeller, letting inertia carry me along as the trio of torpedoes carried-on past me. As soon as they face-planted into the riverbed I started up again, making a break for it. Luckily the Helo's were chasing the torp-trail to my East, having abandoned their, so far, methodical search pattern to give chase as the Destroyers pulled back due to three of them suddenly detonating (two torps hit one boat.) I cruised away, staying as far to the Western embankment as I could while the Sea-Kings broke-off their pursuit, returning to their methodical search just as I passed the outer limits of its creeping search radius.
I sighed as I got within distance of human anti-air coverage, the Sea-Kings couldn't follow me here, and my drone confirmed it. I'd made it, I was safe for now.
