Vehicle Assembly Building, Neupapenburg

The hall was huge, so big that a ventilation system had to prevent rain-bearing clouds from forming under the ceiling. It had been built to assemble the stages of the Greif rockets that had launched from Neupapenburg years ago. Now even this mighty edifice struggled to contain Phoibus. The huge monster of a reusable spacecraft was no taller than a Greif, but several times its diameter and that was before the auxiliary fuel tanks were attached to it. The spacecraft could be flown both manned and unmanned, it could be outfitted with different modules as needed. Phoibus' bow had opened like a petal and a massive crane held the huge cylinder of a cargo module above it.

The hall's floor and many of the gantries were filled with people. Some of them had a good reason to be here, others just wanted to watch. None of them worked at any task, none spoke, all watched the man who stood on a platform that rested against the cargo capsule.

Nathan Alpers had a front row seat, having been selected by DLR to aid their customer. The man was clad in somber robes, showed few emotions and spoke in an even, quiet voice. Currently he finished the last sentences of a ritual and touched the seal a last time.

Nothing spectacular happened, no light show accompanied the ritual and the only sounds that reached the audience's ears were those formed in the real. And yet all could not help but feel that something had been closed and sealed , stored safely for all eternity. There was a feeling of melancholy peace and the crowd was quiet when it left the building.

Frigate Altdorf, 150 km from the Vampire Coast

The torpedo's search circle had approached Altdorf from the rear starboard quarter. When its pistol fired it ignited a mixture of two explosives. One needed more oxidizer than it contained in itself, the other had a surfeit of that. Molecules recombined themselves so that electrons were exchanged between atoms, more stable configurations achieved and a lot of energy released. 330 kg of explosives converted into the same mass of superheated gas under enormous pressure that expanded in all directions.

The way down meant pushing against a pressure that rose by a bar with every ten meters. Up was different, there were less than ten meters of water above the expanding bubble. A huge fountain of water rose above the detonation, sending water and dead sea-life all over creation. And then there was sideways. Pressure kept equal that way and the speed of sound is much faster in water than in the air, meaning the shock-wave reached out with frightening speed. At one point it met plates of steel welded on stringers of the same. They were more robust than those found on a merchant vessel and angled towards the explosion.

That meant that they crumpled like paper on only ten meters of the hull, tearing apart at their welds, moving inwards and assuming shapes that were not meant to be on a ship's side. The shockwave pushed water in at a speed that make it act like a ram, punishing all in its way. Several crewmen in the engine room were thrown around like rag-dolls and were unconscious when the sea buried them where they were.
For most ships this would have been the end. A part of the hull had been damaged to the point where it would no longer be able to hold the ship together. Normal ships would break apart and simply sink, Altdorf was different.

Henrikk Gerber had discussed the specifications of the medium escort ship that would eventually become the Altdorf and by extension the Flensburg class he had called for a German warship. They were usually not the fastest, the best armed or the most maneuverable. Instead they were immensely hard to kill, especially by underwater hits.

At 2500 tons Altdorf lacked the beam to have any in-depth defense against underwater explosions, no practical torpedo belt could protect the ship's vulnerable sides. Thus, its designers did not even try. Instead the stole a leaf from the F124 frigate's book. The Flensburg yard had built the ship around two box girders. They provided the structural strength needed to keep the ship together and contained the most important electrical, hydraulic and communication lines of the ship in elastic mounts.

The ship was divided into six watertight compartments that had no passages under the waterline. Each of these compartments contained the means for combating leaks and fires. Two of these compartments could be flooded and the ship would still remain afloat and functional after a fashion.
Henrik Gerber and the yard had given Altdorf a slim chance to survive a torpedo strike. It would fall to her crew and the enemy to see if that was enough.

Neupapenburg Spaceport

The vehicle that brought Phoibus to the launch pad was not the biggest land vehicle ever built by Germans, that honor went to Bagger 288 and his siblings. It still dwarfed anything else that moved on tracks. The same diesel-generator sets that pushed Altdorf and her sisters through the waves powered the crawler to a top speed of 6 kph. The crawler would never go to such a reckless speed with a spacecraft on its back and certainly not today.

Phoibus, as it was on the crawler, was way past two thousand tons when one included the payload. It became much heavier when many times that weight was pumped into the tanks inside the spacecraft and the external ones. Today Phoibus would fly unmanned, still every check was made every bit as thoroughly as ever. It would not do to ditch the cargo and DLR operated only three spacecraft of its class. Losing one would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Launches from Neupapenburg were pretty routine by now, this one would be watched by many. Most of the interested parties were humans, some were quite definitively not. A few did not even exist in what a German would call the real world.

S-647 Minerve, 110 meters below, close to Lustrian coast

"Whump"

Minerve's torpedo had detonated, everybody on board could hear that. Even in their current state the crew members should have cheered at that, currently they had different things on their minds. As much as the explosion signaled their victory it might very well be a portent of their own fate if they were not careful. Lieutenant de Vaisseau Andre Fauve gripped the guardrail around the periscope in an effort to remain upright. The submarine was doing a tight spiral downwards where the blessed thermocline promised some protection from the sonar that could be heard all too well throughout the boat.

It was still at least 30 meters below them and Minerve was making all kinds of noise on its way downwards. Fauve's eyes were glued on the depth gauge but his mind was elsewhere. One part had thoughts chasing themselves like so many frightened rabbits. How could he have overlooked that bloody blimp? Was his mind going or had the airship been right on top of the boat? Had he doomed himself and his crew? Another part of him hoped that this was so.

Splash.
Minerve's captain had heard something enter the water even without the aid of sonar, it was that close.

"Hard right rudder, down planes full, flank speed, now now now."

The depth charge was a simple thing. A thin container just robust enough to be dropped from a helicopter or an airship, equipped with a proximity and a hydrostatic fuse. The Bundesmarine did not have any in its inventory when the Weltensprung happened. Unfortunately, the Mark 46 torpedo used to combat submarines refused to acknowledge many of the more dangerous sea critters of the Warhammer World as targets and it would have been a very expensive solution for the problem. So, the depth charges were back by the time of the Hag Graef raid and the Imperial Navy had acquired some for its airships.

It sank at a leisurely eight meters per second. Its payload of 100 kgs of explosives meant that, like in horseshoes, close was good enough. It had touched the water barely a second after Little Altdorf had winched its dipping sonar from the sea. It had been pretty much on course for a rendezvous with the submarine when Parzifal had calculated a solution. It was just that Minerve had changed track radically since that time. The proximity fuze did not find the disturbance in the magnetic field it projected, so the hydrostatic one did the honors. When the pressure on it was eight times of what it was above the sea it triggered a pilot charge that made the rest join the party.

The shock-wave moved at 1500 meters a second, five times faster than in the air. Yet, with each meter it expanded it lost power. When it hit the steel plates that made up the submarine's secondary hull it dished in some plates, it collapsed the container that held the inflatable rafts and stressed some seals. The primary hull stayed intact, and the sea stayed outside of Minerve. At the same time the charge roiled the waters to the point where Little Altdorf's sonar was useless for 15 long minutes.

The deck shifted under Fauve's feet, a hammer blow transmitted itself through the railing he clutched with both hands. The lights went out for eternal seconds and were replaced by the red shine of the battery-powered battle lamps. They shone on something that covered the floor like red rubies, it being the shattered glass from several gauges. None of that registered in Fauve's mind, not really. Like all of his crew he strained his ears to detect the shot-like failure of welds and the hiss of incoming water. There was nothing and he had to act quick lest Minerve would destroy herself.

"Helm, up planes, blow ballast, turns for ten knots. Bring her up to 80 meters and set course for 090."
"Yes Sir."

Fauve had pushed the submarine down in his haste to avoid what he had correctly perceived as a threat. He had done so properly, however Minerve was now heading for her test depth at great speed. She had spent a great lot of time without maintenance, it was everybody's best guess what that meant for her structural integrity. The submarine had built up what speed she could and now a lot of inertia tried to push her towards her doom. Compressed air was released into her ballast tanks, forcing the water out, making the boat lighter. The diving planes were moved from down to up in a few seconds.

Minerve's speed forced the water that hit the planes downwards, pushing the sub up at the same time.

And yet she wanted to go down and a part of Fauve's mind watched the needle on the depth gauge move towards the red line with relish. All around them the hull groaned and creaked, everybody was watching the pipes and seams for the small leak that was going to kill them all.
The needle settled at 280 meters before it started to get up again.

Fauve and his crew no longer needed to breathe, but they would have started doing so again after that if they still cared to.

Frigate Altdorf, 150 km from the Vampire Coast

Altdorf's captain's mind should have been filled with recriminations about the loss of life brought about by his failings as a captain. He was far too busy for that, he had a ship and a crew to save.
Hans Oels had been at the "Ausbildungszentrum Schiffsicherung" (Training Center for Damage Control) in Neustadt/Holstein, like every other member of Altdorf's crew. This center did its level best to teach damage control to all members of the Bundesmarine and provided the same to the Imperial Navy.

At first Oels had felt quite good about himself, as the trainers were telling them they were doing well, all regarded. His men performed well enough, considering the circumstances. Given their background and the level of education his crew did well enough.

He had needed less then a week to learn what that meant, he did not even have to ask Henrik Gerber, then his captain. Condescension.

The trainers thought the Imperials backwards, of being unable to grasp what they were taught fully because they had not grown up in a technological society like themselves. This did not sit lightly with him or the rest of the crew. They were the elite of the Imperial Navy, having won the prestigious post by passing stringent tests and taking part in grueling competitions. Here they were treated like those in the state of grace.

There had been more than a little grumbling, two resignations and the evening. The evening when the officers and their crew sat down and talked about it. They realized quickly they had three ways to go about this: swallow it, reject it or show the arrogant trainers up. Given who they were it was no surprise it was the latter.

There might be training classes who worked harder at Neustadt, who applied themselves more and who maxed more tests and scenarios. If so there were no records of them and Altdorf's crew finished with high honors. Everybody was very pleased with himself, even when Hans Oels sometimes suspected that he and the crew had been set up. Henrik Gerber would not say either way, except agreeing that they had done very well indeed.

On top of that Altdorf was the first modern Imperial warship and had a sterling reputation after Kaman Sala. The captain and her crew felt a lot of pressure to maintain the standard they had achieved. Henrik Gerber and the Flensburg yard had given Altdorf a chance, now the crew had to take that up.

Hans Oels would be the man to make that happen.

He had stopped the ship immediately after the impact. Three engines had ceased working anyways and he was loath to stress any bulkheads holding back the sea more than they had to.
From the bridge he could see that the crew was doing their best to ready the fothering sail. The heavy-duty piece of impregnated sailcloth normally served as a sunshade for Altdorf's deck when needed. Now it would be guided to the leak with ropes that were handled from both sides of the hull. The party would pull them back until the sail would cover the leak.
Several streams of water went overboard as pumps sucked as much water from his ship as they could. Most parts of the ship still had electricity, the one main engine was working on a generator and several smaller ones were distributed through the ship.

"1O, any update about the fires?"
"The one in engine room no. 4 went out by itself, that one is pretty much under water by now. We still have a fire in engine room no.1, in the enlisted mess and one close to the paint locker. We are working on all of them and so far none of them spread. I want to put more effort in the one at the paint locker, once that is done, we go for the engine room."
"Make it so. Try to get more engines started. If the party below gets that leak plugged, I want to get out of here and soon. Whoever did this to us is still around."
"Aye aye Sir."