Black Ark Eternal Torment, Nagarond Harbor, Naggaroth
There were more than a hundred slaves who worked on the anchor windlass, pushing with all the might the threat of a whip could entice from them. Even so, with all their muscles straining and sweat running down their abused bodies the windlass refused to move. The whips were out and the boatswain commanded them to lay into it in short spurts of effort. At the fifth try something finally moved and the slaves nearly dropped. Instead they managed to catch themselves and managed to get the windlass going.
Garth Fellheart heard the "anchor aweigh". Any other vessel would have changed its movement patterns, the Black Arc was so massive that it showed no sign of it.
"Captain, anchor is aweigh, awaiting your command."
"Very well Master Urlryn, take her from the harbor. Proceed to the channel, the others will follow."
"Yes Sir."
Gareth Fellheart stood on the Ark's bridge while the waters around the old fortress started to flow in ways her helmsdruchii demanded. And whether driven by mundane means or the forces of the Empyrean, Newton dictated that the great ship moved in the other direction. Eternal Torment needed an eternity to gather speed and make for the harbor's exit. Once she had had cleared harbor's mouth the Claw of Domination and Black Serenade took her place in the fleet. All three Arks had been remade in the image of Torsten Breitkop. Fellheart had found a new depth of hate for this human while the German's slaves had cored his home, his seat of power and his only love. They had ripped out living quarters, slave pens and torture chambers with the same disdain and dropped their eldrich tools and weapons in. They had changed the Eternal Torment beyond recognition and there were exactly two reasons why this Breitkop was still alive. One was that Fellheart's skin would decorate Naggarond's wall after Malekith was through with him. The other was that he sailed to wrest control of the Sea of Malice from the Chaos Dwarfs. Their armored cruisers had sunk all ships and demolished all fortifications they laid their sight on. If anything would allow Fellheart to survive the coming battle, let alone win it it would be the modifications the German had made to his Ark.
S-647 Minerve, 120 meters below, close to Lustrian coast
The hand creaked when it moved jerkily and still it managed to put the small, round piece of glass where it needed to be. The hand fixed it there while the other one picked up the ring and screwed it into place. The hands belonged to a machinist mate who turned to his box to extract another glass and repeat the process.
Lieutenant de Vaisseau Andre Fauve watched the work for a moment and tried to remember when and why he had ordered the repairs to be made. Yes, it was important to replace the glass on the instruments broken by their recent depth charging. If it wasn't done, they would corrode even worse than they already were and that would not do. On the hand the timing could be better, really now. He was about to tell the mate to continue at another time when he remembered how very tired he was. It would make no difference either way.
Instead he turned to the sonar operator who would have closed his eyes to concentrate better on his earphones if he still had eyelids to do so.
"Anything, sonar?"
"No mon Capitaine. I got only biologicals. That other thing has not repeated yet and I am not sure if it was a sonar at all."
"What else could it be?"
"In these waters? No idea. But the frequency was very low, I have never heard a sonar like that."
"Oui. Still, better safe than sorry. We stay at General Quarters."
Andre Fauve sat down at his chair and resumed waiting. His resurrection had taken so many things away, things he missed and which he knew he would never be able to regain. One of the things he did not miss was boredom. Given sufficient reason he could sit here till Minerve rusted away to nothingness without it bothering him.
Half an hour later another eddy pushed up from the unthinking depths. It missed most of the submarine and exerted itself on Minerve's bow. The gyroscopes detected the beginning roll and pushed and pulled on levers. Their movements were used by the analog computer as data. It started working on it as it had always done. Things went pretty well until a ball which ran between two disks as part of an integral calculus computation hit a pit. Dropping into it the ball immediately ceased to transmit the rotation of one disk to the other. The old computer had no error correction at all, it treated the altered output as gospel. It opened valves and engaged pumps as decreed by the outcome of the calculations. Water rushed from the bow tank to those in the back and air left ballast tanks while the sea gained admittance.
The two parts that made up Andre Fauve's mind saw the same thing. The toolbox brought by the rating slid backwards on the floor till it hit the pedestal around the periscope, upending itself. Countless small tools and spare pieces of glass dropped from it and caused an almighty racket as they made their way across the tilted floor of the command center. All over the submarine other crashing noises could be heard as unsecured gear sought new resting places. One part of Fauve's mind was aghast at the noise and the danger that this brought. The other was grimly satisfied and asked itself why the old computer had lasted that long without unwinding, recalibration and maintenance. It had been hard to suppress these thoughts whenever they came up. Now both parts knew what needed to be done. Both knew the great risks and that there was no avoiding what needed to be done. One feared this might bring an endgame about, the other hoped so.
"Helm, turns for 10 knots, down bow planes full, empty ballast tanks right now."
"Aye aye Sir."
Within seconds Minerve's twin screws started to turn, pushing water backwards. The submarine slowly accelerated, allowing her rudders and planes to bite the sea and steer Minerve back to an even keel. The damage to the sub was minor, the fact that she had made quite a lot of noise was not.
U40, 60 meters, close to Lustrian coast
"Transient, transient, transient. Captain, we have a contact at 121 degree. Machinery noises, close."
"Very well sonar, looks like we found our customer. 1O, action stations. Sonar, I need an active scan from 100 to 140 in two minutes. Weapons, spool up torpedoes one and two, set for active. This is going to be a snap shot, I need a solution fast."
Friedel Bauer had not been far from the command center the last few days. Not that he did not trust his crew implicitly, which he did. But the satellite scans had made very clear that the enemy Daphne had to be very close. And a torpedo with U40's name on it as the first contact with the old submarine was a distinct possibility. Thank god the other side had fucked up first, now it was his job to make something of it. All across the submarine men and women moved towards their stations, tools were stashed and papers put away. All of that happened far, far more quietly than a similar evolution on a surface ship. Making sounds was not conductive to continued respiration in submarine warfare. Which would not keep U40 from becoming very loud indeed very soon.
The twin pressure hulls and the hydrodynamic one that enclosed them had given U40's designers a lot of room to play with. Even when the eight torpedo tubes were accommodated for there was more than sufficient space for a huge sonar array. Rows upon rows of transducers were arranged in a horseshoe shape. The cables leading to them were arm-thick for a reason. While the active sonar was not used much it was very, very powerful. When the first pulses of sound were formed and pressure waves raced through the sea the water in contact with the transducers boiled.
The deep-frequency waves moved through the ocean at nearly a mile a second and if they hit any solid object their reflections made it back to U40, giving both bearing and distance. It revealed the German submarine to anybody with the simplest of hydrophones within a hundred kilometers
S-647 Minerve, 80 meters below, close to Lustrian coast
"Contact, I have contact at 301 degree. Strong signal, likely sonar, Sir."
"Merde. Helm, full right rudder, new course 280. Weapons, flood tubes five and six, set the torps for a search pattern along the bearing."
"Tubes five and six flooded, weapons set."
"Open outer doors. Firing point procedures, fire both weapons at bearing 301."
Two sets of noises went through Minerve when lots of high-pressure air forced two torpedoes from their tubes. Both accelerated to 25 knots and started a snake-like pattern soon thereafter. If there was a target to be found along their course, they would attack it.
"Helm, course 180, turns for ten knots, down bow planes full, bring us to 120 meters. Sonar, anything?"
"Nothing besides that sonar. No transient, no additional screw noises. Maybe they are slow?"
U40, 60 meters, close to Lustrian coast
"Captain; this is sonar. We have a target at bearing 120, distance 4800 meters, course 180, speed ten knots."
"Weapons, flood tubes one and two, open outer doors."
"Outer doors open, Solution set."
"Very well. Fire tube one and two."
There was something of a rumble that went through U40, nothing more. The tubes were bigger than the weapons inside them, they went out under their own power, helped by something that the builders called a water ram. The DM2A5 Seahake were older than the Weltensprung, having exchanged their silver-zinc batteries for gigacaps together with a software update for their seekers. Both accelerated to more than 50 knots using a pump-jet propulsion that was far quieter than the older torpedoes carried by the French submarine.
"Helm, hard right rudder, new course 270, flank speed. Weapons, drop a noisemaker."
Everybody on board grabbed something to hold themselves steady. The submarine banked like an aircraft for the turn, and the luckless crewmember not well secured would find him- or herself against the wall. The twin screws really bit into the water, causing a huge disturbance in the water that was punctuated by a canister that spewed bubbles all over creation. Behind them two sets of weapons passed each other.
Minerve's torpedoes were comparatively slow as they had to listen to any sound their target made. Their old sensors would not allow for any speed better than 25 knots. In order to increase their search cones they followed a path curved like a snake's. While it made picking the target up easier it slowed the weapons down further. The Seahakes had run for about a kilometer when they activated their own active sonars. Pinging away they looked for echoes and quickly found one. Correcting their course, the two weapons turned into their attack runs.
On their way they found an opaque zone that swallowed their sonar like a fog would swallow light. Minerve had ejected a countermeasure that made the same bubbles as its German counterpart. The Sehakes were programmed for such a possibility and broke left and right before turning in again.
S-647 Minerve, 120 meters below, close to Lustrian coast
Lieutenant de Vaisseau Andre Fauve no longer needed his sonar operator to tell him about enemy sonar. He could hear it himself, one if not two distinct sets which became louder with every passing second. Minerve was following a corkscrew course downwards that was his best chance to shake the approaching doom, but in his heart, he knew it to be useless. Heinrich Kemmler had taken so many things from the submarine's crew, the ability to feel the wind, to taste food and most of all to make their own decisions. He had also taken the capability to fear from the undead and Fauve was happy for that. Not that there was much to fear, he had been beyond the veil already, this place had nothing for him. He would..
Both German torpedoes managed to hit the old submarine at the same time. Close to a ton of explosives ripped Minerve open to the sea and crushed everything inside flat. And while her crew returned where they belonged, their E-12 torps hit the countermeasure left by U40. They started circling to acquire any target and used two turns to find the German submarine's noise. They followed the new bearing, but were hardly faster than their prey. They followed U40 for about ten minutes before their batteries died and both weapons self-destructed.
Black Ark Eternal Torment, Sea of Malice
Gareth Fellheart hated all things German, just some things less than others. The binoculars that enhanced his already impressive eyesight were among the things he hated least. They were useful, he could understand them and the Germans had no need maintaining them, so he was in full control.
The picture the instrument provided was a totally different matter. Neither the calm sea the color of slate nor the sky that was a hazy blue could rouse his ire. That privilege was given to the ships that were the picture's centerpiece. They threatened him and all true elves, they were an abomination and Germans had a hand in shaping them. There were five of them visible, two more than he had been told he would have to face. His only chance beating them lay in the arcane devices Breitkopf had mutilated his beautiful Ark to install. He commanded Eternal Torment for nearly a century now, knew how to use her as a weapon as much as he knew his sword. Now he had to relearn and his only solace lay in the fact that all Druchii had to do so.
Eternal Torment's captain was standing on the Ark's highest tower, a place he had used to command her for as long as she was his. On any other ship it would be nearly useless, waves would toss him about like a rat in the mouth of a terrier. The great mass and magic of the Arc made it stable as any solid ground he ever stood on. Its height provided a commanding view, the stone crenellations protected him from the enemy. Of course, the Germans would not let this place unmolested, they had fostered their toys on it too. One consisted of what looked like half a binocular as well as an assortment of brass levers, rings and wheels. On his ensigns was currently bent above and used it to target the enemy. It seemed like he had the bearing down, now he turned a wheel that adjusted the binox angle ever so slightly.
"0.573"
Another ensign walked his fingers through the pages of a folder while another reported the result into a tube that went below.
" Bearing 076 at 4000 meters. We will have course and speed in a minute Sire."
"Very well, make it quick then."
"No bearing change, new angle 0.619"
Gareth heard the reports down the tube and a few seconds later something garbled came up again.
"Sir, enemy is on course 256, speed 12 knots."
"Very well. Contact Claw and Serenade, they are to take positions in line abreast. What about our eyes?"
"Radio reports them five minutes out."
"About bloody time then. Contact Turek, he may commence firing."
Gareth Fellheart went back to the tower's wall, taking another look at the vastness of rock that was his home, his love and the source of his sustenance. He would prevail, he had to. Behind him two detonations accompanied two flashes that lit the scene briefly.
