With the Abyssal fleet:
"This is stupid, why can't we just go around this shit?" I said to my sister-ship, Tsu-05. We were cruising towards the thick black smoke billowing up from the oil-fires we'd scattered. Ta-01 had ordered us to make the crossing, now that this section had been largely extinguished. I could see why the Destroyers couldn't go on land, obviously, but why the ships with actual legs couldn't just go around it I had no idea.
"Would take too long and we'd be getting swarmed by 'Cong-tanks the second we landed, why? you scared of a minute of fumes? just hold your breath, dumbass. Or just switch out those crappy bag-filters in your AC when we come out of it." I nodded my bridge, My sister was right, the human fleet had been on the run when they'd been obscured, no doubt they were already beyond visual range. There was no reason to tarry if we wanted to close the distance, otherwise we might have to dodge missiles again!
We let the Destroyers through first, the little ships running at flank speed as to spend as little time in the smoke as possible. We followed in shortly after, being Light-Cruiser's meant we were in the second wave. Immediately I had to seal all the doors to my interior, and set my HVAC to positive pressure to keep out the fumes, I couldn't keep it up for too long, but it would keep the fumes from affecting my crew. I couldn't see a single thing beyond my... well, where my nose would be if I had one. I raised my sister through a private comm channel so I wouldn't get a lungful of smoke.
"You still beside me? I cant see a damn thing in this!"
"I haven't changed course, if you haven't and are maintaining the same speed we should be right next to each other." Ah, well that was reassuring. It also meant I wouldn't have to worry about smashing into that Chi-class that was off my port-side.
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Over the roar of the fires nearby and the humans blind-fire from the riverbanks, I heard one of the Destroyers ahead squeal in pain. "Did you hear that?" My sister gave an affirmative as I hailed the ship in front. "Ro 78, what's your status?" It replied, it was in pain. Something had mangled its propeller, leaving it to drift backward in the river's current.
A similar squeal erupted off my bow on the Portside, followed by another, and another! What the hell was going on!? I hastily raised our acting-flagship as howls of pain erupted in front of us. "Ta-01! This is Tsu-06! Something is mangling our propulsion systems ahead, did the humans stretch a cable across the river or something to fetch us up on?"
"Negative, the water was fine before the oil-slick went up, they wouldn't have had time to stretch a line across since then." Another Destroyer howled, this one close, off of my stern, as this time I heard a wet 'Crack!' accompanying it.
"There's something in here with us Maam! The damage isn't working in a straight line!"
"Keep an eye on Sonar, I'll have Kitty-Hawk relaunch some of her Sea-Kings to check for submarines, we've already had a few in the water when we were passing through that minefield earlier, I'll order the Destroyers to begin launching charges as well." Submarines?! That was just what they needed when we were effectively blind! I warned my sister. " 05! there's probable submarines! Listen for anything under your keel!"
But received no response.
"...05? Please respond!"
"Hmmm? sorry, didn't get you the first time, what was that?" I sighed in relief, repeating what I'd said earlier, to a predictable response.
"WHAT!? Submarines!? In this crap? We have to get moving!" Meanwhile, I could hear the sound of launching Depth charges as they rolled over the Destroyers's railings, we weren't in very deep water, though the bottom near the city was nearly fifty feet deeper than the rest of the river, probably the result of dredging. So the Destroyers really only had to set the charges to detonate at two different depths to cover all the surrounding areas practically to the surface.
Seconds afterward, the first torpedo's could be heard, smashing into the front-rank of Destroyers from the sounds of it. My sister piped up on the radio. "That's Definitely submarines! but how? those depth charges should have... They are on the surface! They have to be!" And a fat lot of good that did us. We were far more likely to shoot each other than the submarines in this, all we could really do was steam ahead and hope to get out into an area where we could actually se-
Something latched on to my right-calve.
I startled, trying to yank my leg out of what was obviously a sub's grip, but it was strong. Stronger than anything that I'd expect from one of those underwater pricks. I reached back with my right hand-Rigging to try and pry it off, but not before it bit into my rudder, tearing a massive chunk off as I screamed. I sank to one knee on the water, my course naturally curving as one of my rudders was destroyed.
I finally grabbed ahold of the little bastard as it went for my other foot, but it simply took my thumb and index finger within each of its hands befor- CRUNCH.
Ah, Ahh! OWW OWWWW! "Sister! are you alright?!" 05 Radioed, clued in by my yelps of pain as I cradled my now-broken hand-Rigging to my chest, barely noticing aside from falling fully to my knee's as my other rudder was torn off, before the sub, having seemingly finished having its way with me, submerged again, by the splashes I heard anyway.
Throughout the entire thing, I hadn't even been able to see it.
"One of the sub's attacked me! It's going for our Rudders and propeller's! I didn't even see a thing on my Sonar!" My frantic words were punctuated as another round of explosives heralded more torpedo strikes, what they hit, I had no idea.
"It hit you with a torp?!"
"No! it, it BIT me!" I wailed.
"What?! What the hell kind of Kanmusu sub fucking eats Abyssal Stee- HEY! let go of me you little bastard! Ack!" There were sounds over their comm of a struggle, and I could hear the splashing off my Starboard side, I couldn't help, with my rudders... Eaten, I couldn't change course.
"05! don't let it get hold of your rudders!"
"I'm trying! This thing is too damn strong! Ha! Got you, you damn dirt- 'Crack!' -Iiiiee! My hand!" The fight played out just like her own had, it seemed. After a few more moments, the splashing stopped, the sub probably having moved off again.
"Are you still afloat over there 05?" I asked worriedly.
"Y-Yeah."
There were 5" shots off my Port-side, the Chi's AA gun most likely, before a tremendous metallic tearing noise. The gun went silent. I raised Ta-01 on my radio again, as screaming and the explosions from torpedo strikes carried further away from me.
"This, This i-is Tsu-06, It's definitely at least one submarine, it's tearing off our propulsion systems, we can't move or turn in this! We can't even fight back!"
"The depth charges?"
"Didn't work! it's on the surface with us!" I bumped into something from behind as it drifted into my backward-drifting path, I swung wildly in a panic, connecting with my uninjured hand's Rigging, the object didn't respond, other than to twirl in-place, so I assumed it to be a derelict Destroyer.
Ta-01 voice rang out, this time on a fleet-wide channel. "All Ships fall back out of the smoke to assume new formation! We cant advance through the smoke without getting torn apart, all we can do is wait for it to clear while we take the shoreline on foot, I want everyone changing position constantly in scattered formations once we make landfall, if they fire off another salvo of missiles it will help mitigate the damage. Kitty-Hawk's Sea Kings will watch the perimeter of the burning oil, We'll know when the Kanmusu Submarines try to advance on our Destroyers's positions, meanwhile, her Phantoms will help target any entrenched human ground forces with precision and watch the sky for more launches, over and out."
As I finally drifted out of the smoke, allowing myself to finally breathe and be able to SEE again, my sister drifted out shortly after, followed by more ships as they went to obey Ta-01's order, most were fine. But a handful were in the same basic situation as me. I finally craned my bridge around to look, and saw that the object I'd bungled into was the bottom-half of the Chi-Class that had been cruising next to me.
Where the top half went, I didn't know, though from the human-sized bite marks through where the thickest section of hull would connect to the torso, I could make a guess.
