Black Ark Eternal Torment, Sea of Malice
Crumpf Bang
The rumble followed the impact on its feet. An enemy shell had found Eternal Torment and it had detonated below. There had been a very minor tremble under Gareth Fellhearts feet, felt only as he knew every move, nook and cranny of his beloved Ark. He was pretty sure where it had applied its fury and could practice being inscrutable while the reports were coming in through the pipes.
"Captain, Lieutenant Ravara reports an impact into the port hangar, some fragments were ejected into it. The two boats are superficially damaged, but no fire."
"Very well Ensign."
More muzzle blasts ruffled the captain's robe and he found himself counting the seconds till the twin projectiles landed. One landed inf front of the target, one went into the ship's superstructure. Pieces were blown off and smoke started rising from the ruined upper works. Not as satisfactory as pushing a blade into an enemy's belly, but nevertheless nice. He would take it and the enemy could bleed and burn at a distance as long as he died or fled.
The next shots fell behind the DawiZharr cruisers and the binox revealed the shortened silhouettes. Gareth was about to mention this when the DawiZharr cannons fired again. We did not see them drop, but he surely felt one impact. Much louder this time and the impact threw him on his back. He tried to shake the dizziness from his head just to find that the ground below him really swayed. At about the same moment that he realized what that mean the tower collapsed under him, dropping him under tons of rubble and burying Gareth Fellheart on his beloved Black Ark.
DawiZharr cruiser Thunderchild's bridge, 2900 meters from Eternal Torment
"Got you, you bleeder"
The Ensign was exuberant and Ernutan Doomshackler could easily see why. So far, the DawiZharr fleet had come from the artillery duel second best, their flying disks had been shot down by Druchii guns. Anything that showed that they were hurting these mountains of doom was welcome.
"We have course 080 captain."
"Very well helmsman, keep her steady. Engines all ahead."
Ernutan Doomstalker felt the deck move under his feet and saw the Arks move to the side.
"Closing up with the enemy?"
"Yes Commander Doomstalker. The enemy uses some sort of high angle gun, they usually have a minimum range. We need to close the distance, the we can shoot them to small pieces."
"Seems things at sea are not so much different that from land."
"I would not presume to say."
By now the Arks were visible through the bridge's front windows, now the deck below Ernutan's feet started to vibrate till everything rattled. Thunderchild's bow lift minutely up and the huge cruiser sped at its enemy at a speed Ernutan found hard to estimate. Before he could ask he was slapped by the muzzle blast from the left sponson cannon, followed by the one from the right and finally the one in the middle. Whatever he had wanted to say was forgotten in the sensation of being assaulted like that. If this was the result of one gun firing at a time he would not want to know what would have happened if all three guns would have fired at the same time. The Ark took two hits, nothing so spectacular than felling one of the towers, hits nevertheless.
The could see the flashes of the enemy guns, he could not see any waterspouts, they must have been behind Thunderchild. Yes, this was the way, the fish heads had finally grasped what ground pounders like Ernutan knew all too well. Victory would go to those willing to take their licks, keep going and close with their enemies. More flashes lit up the Black Arks, more water spouts appeared all around the DawiZharr ships.
By now the vibrations had reached a crescendo, the engine issued a deep roar and Ernutan began to feel a slight wind brushing through his beard. He found himself cheering like a lot of others. The cheers were swallowed whole by Thunderchild's muzzle blasts. Ernutan's ear's were still ringing when something pushed on his soles and another blast mixed itself with the guns violence. And even after these assaults his ears could not fail to hear the caccophony that mixed a tea kettle with the scream of tortured souls at the sound level of a landslide. The bridge's crews faces would have given away that something was really really wrong if the force that pushed Ernutan slightly forward would not have been a better indicator. Thunderchild had lost at least some of her boilers and now she was slowing down. He could just step aside when the crew erupted into a hive of activity and watched as Fire Breather passed Thunderchild by. On the port side Ironsworn pulled alongside Ernutan's stricken ride and fired her guns at another arc before it disappeared in a virtual forest of impacts. Even the watery veil could not hide the heart of fire and smoke and when the DawiZharr cruiser emerged it pulled a long smoke trail behind it.
Before long three warships had overtaken Thunderchild in line abreast, charging their enemy no matter how many bombs the cowardly Druchii threw at them. By now the cruisers fired what secondaries they could bring to bear. They might lack the weight of shot the main guns could bring to bear, but fired much more often. Fire and smoke rose on the Black Arks and small landslides showed where the true Dwarfs were hurting their enemies.
The sound was unique and managed to cut through the din. It was the loudest version of a hammer beating iron that Ernutan ever heard. For a second the battle seemed to pause before a deep hissing accompanied the fiery column that rose on top of Ironsworn's bow turret. At the same time other hammer blows could be heard, even if they did not have the same spectacular results.
Black Ark Eternal Torment, Sea of Malice
The recoil pushed the gun back and down. Its carriage guided through a graceful curve before it stopped at its lowest point. The whole carriage turned till it was centered and the muzzle was level with an opening in the armor that enclosed the emplacement.
A good naval cannon, especially one made to pierce thick armor, had to have a number of features that asked for high-grade alloys and lots of precision manufacturing at a grand scale. Hydraulic pistons to control the recoil, high-pressure pneumatic systems that brought them back forward. A barrel with deep, precisely cut rifling that would stand high pressures ended breech that allowed rapid loading. Thorsten Breitkop to work with limited resources and had omitted all these requirement when he constructed the Ark's secondary armament.
A disappearing mount absorbed the recoil mechanically, taking the gun from the line of sight for the reloading cycle. The breech was simply a piece of forged steel that closed the barrel to the rear. A mechanical rammer allowed the crew a semi-decent reloading speed from the muzzle. The gun was laid before a gun captain released the brake that kept it low. Once it had cleared the emplacements rim small adjustments were made before the next shot pushed it down again. The round that left the barrel was long and cylindrical when it passed the muzzle. The violence of the shot and the air resistance stripped three wooden pieces from the round, revealing a slender cylinder stabilized by fins.
A bit of chrome and nickel allowed the steel to be flexible yet hard enough to pierce the armor that terminated its short flight. It remained more or less intact when it made its way into the tightly packed armored bridge of a DawiZharr cruiser, but it pulled enough armor off to fill the compartment with fragments that killed everybody present.
With nobody at the helm Ironsworn turned broadside to the secondary guns of two Black Arks, one found a pile of ready ammunition. It did not blow up the ship, but made for a nasty fire that consumed the warship. The smoke that rose from it masked the retreat of its three squadron-mates. The Black Arks lacked both the speed to follow them. It was just as well, the floating fortresses were full of the dead, the dying and machinery in shambles.
