Black Ark Eternal Torment, Sea of Malice

The platform under Urian Fellheart's feet shifted minutely and creaked while doing so, feeding her captain's unease. The platform stood atop a mast made from wood and steel girders and provided a commanding view of the sea around the Black Ark. It was exactly the same height as the stone tower that had stood for thousands of years before the Chaos Dwarfs shot it down. The tower had buried Gareth Fellheart, his father, at roughly the same time as the Ark had given the stumpies the defeat they so richly deserved.

He should be thankful for them, otherwise his elevation to captaincy would have taken a lot more conspiracy and something that would have made his father weak enough to challenge to a duel. Much better this way. It was just that the very same Chaos Dwarfs wanted a rematch and had brought in new ships. The little information available said they were not much bigger than their predecessors, but even more ugly and strange. And the rickety ersatz tower he stood on was a nasty reminder that the stumpies could dish out some serious hurt. In the world that had been, new and unknown often meant untried and unready. In the new world the Germans had wrought, it usually meant more dangerous.
It had been the mages who had given the Black Ark squadron a bearing. Whatever drove the enemy's cruisers was showing a baleful light in the Empyrean. He had lost a dragon scouting, but the rider had performed a last service via the wireless and had confirmed that five ships wanted to force their way into the Sea of Malice.

"0.477"
"Sire, enemy is at 6500 meters."

The collapsing tower had indeed killed his father, it had left his precious binoculars nearly unscathed. His fine true elven eyes and the Ark's stability allowed him to make out details even at this distance. Three of the ships he had indeed seen before, two were very different. They seemed to be the same size as the ones Eternal Torment had already fought. That was practically the only thing they had in common. The newcomers had less superstructure, actually the bow and the back looked like they did not have much of it at all. The middle of the ships was taken by two open barbettes sporting guns that seemed ridiculously oversized. The barbettes would maybe protect against Eterna Torment'sl secondaries, but would do nothing about the Ark's mortars. Not that they would do any damage to each other before the ships got a lot closer. There was a shadow on the water that got Urian's attention, it turned out to be a single flying disk. His ship could take care of them if it came closer, but so far, the flier kept its distance.

When Eternal Torment's captain turned his binoculars back on the ships, they looked off for a second until he realized that they seemed longer as they turned their broadsides towards the Arks. What the bleeding….Both sides needed to come a lot closer before they could have at it or did they?
A silent muzzle flame quickly dissolved itself into a whitish cloud, the boom arrived barely a second before the huge splash that rose a hundred meters before Eternal Torment.

DawiZharr Dreadnought Hashut's Might, 6300 meters from Eternal Torment

Undalal the Black's beard hid his smile, which was a good thing. If his crew knew he was pleased they might slack off or use his relaxed state for a bit of battlefield promotion. All around him stumpy figures took the data provided by their own observers, by the Flugscheibe and marvel and came up with their new firing solution. They had a bit of time for that, the gun crews would take more than a minute to load the next 800-kilogram projectile into the gun's hungry mouth. They treated the instrument in the box with great care, woe betide the unlucky dwarf who damaged the pocket calculator that made such short work of the complicated algorithms before them. The DawiZharr had only a few of them and they were in great demand. It's worth was only surpassed by the holy laser range finder that was carried in Hashut's Might top. There was exactly one of them in the fleet and it made today's battle possible. There were rumors that Lord Mordred himself had taken care that a German would see the light of his glory. A blessed instrument of DawiZharr might, all hail Lord Mordred.

The second shot was closer to the Ark already.

Black Ark Eternal Torment, Sea of Malice, an hour later

Urian Fellheart had to grip the tower's railing to keep his footing. So far, the stumpies had managed to miss it, but that was about the only blessing this battle had so far. The enemy managed a hit every five minutes or so, but when they managed that it shook the mighty Ark to its foundations. Great chunks of rock and masonry were blasted off the ship and explosions deep inside wreaked havoc in places that no enemy had touched in a thousand years. No matter how much he threatened his mages or how many slaves he sacrificed, the Ark would not sail fast enough to close the distance to the ugly ships that shot his beloved Ark to pieces.

The next explosion was heralded by a mighty flash that left a flickering light for a few seconds. The deep rumble reached his ears a few seconds later, just in time to see Black Serenade explode with all the might of her own munitions. Icy cold fingers seemed to grip his heart and he remained frozen to the spot till another 15" projectile managed to collapse the tower's foundation.

Site Alpha, Kislev, next day

Jacub General tried to rub some more sight into his tired eyes. The wireless no longer called for him every few minutes and he did not know of a single crisis that needed to be solved right now. Instead he was now punished for his and his crew's sins as he had to document the many improvisations that they had wrought to make Leviathan ready in time. And without said documentation whatever crew would take over the ice ship would have no clue how to handle her. So much to write, so little time….
The small icon on his desktop blinked for a while now, its elevated frequency said so. How could he have missed that?
When he clicked on it the program still needed a minute to establish the connection. The wait was rewarded with a very short message indeed.

"Blechle, this is Urmel. Contact me at the earliest convenience, we have an emergency."

Audimax Mannheim University, Germany

Horst-Henning Jank, like all Earthers on Warhammer old enough to remember Earth, partly wished to return home. On the other hand, the new reality of life had it´s own perks and advantages.

The Professor from the Saarland had become one of the most recognized experts for Trade and General Economics. The "Pundit Prof", as he was nicknamed due to his love of puns, had already written several books about Germany´s economy under these new and strange conditions and two about the Empire and it's industrialization.
And this day he held a guest seminar about the massive worth of the Railways.

„As I said before the coffee pause, we are in the enviable situation to experience and observe the power of the Eisenbahn (Railway) in all her glory. Nowhere on Earth would this be possible. Here on Warhammer World, we have pre-industrial nations like the Empire, Nippon, Cathay, Tilea or Kislev now beginning their industrialization. Or in the case of, for example the Empire or Nippon, their ever faster progress in industry.

Only good transportation possibilities make an industrial nation viable. And the railway is one of the most important. In the coming weeks I will tell you about the various Warhammer nations with railway programs, but today I just want to give you an overview of the Empire and their undertakings.

The most important line in Kaiser Karl Franz's realm is the railway between the German border and Mount Solblick in Wissenland. It connects important cities like Carroburg, Altdorf, Kemperbad, Nuln and Pfeildorf. In southern Wissenland this main line splits into two routes. One via Staig, Ballenhof, Steingart, today the most important city in southern Wissenland, to Ummenbach with a part-time connection to Khazid Hafak. The other following the River Söll, Wittenhausen, Wusterburg to Kreutzhofen and Tierhügel. There is a sideline to Karak Hirn and a route following Brenheim Pass into Tilea. The Tilea connection has very limited capacities and needs special trains to cross the Black mountains.

Most of this railway line is twin tracked, only Ummenbach to Khazid Hafak is a single track. The importance of this railway for the Empire is such that not only is electrification being planned, but there are talks about a high speed side track connecting Altdorf and Nuln directly.

It would be expensive, especially since a lot of the distance would be laying new tracks through forested land, but there are strategic and development interests speaking for it.

Settlements would be popping up along the new railway track, in addition to connecting Grünburg or Dunkelberg better to the main lines and a direct link between the two largest cities in the Empire has logistical and military options.

While this main track through Reik- and Wissenland was the first major railway of Karl Franz's realm, there are other important and well-used ones.
At Nuln, the Mootland-Sylvania line goes East. It connects important cities and towns like Averheim, Streissen, Franzen, Sauerapfel, Eichschatten, Schwarzhafen, Leichenberg, Nachthafen, Waldenhof with the two head termini at Teufelsheim and Drakenhof. A special sideline, mostly used for military and bulk freight, but passengers too, connects Drakenhof directly with Schwarzhafen, cutting through both travel time and the Haunted Hills. From VanHaldenschloss a northern main line branches off, connecting for example Tempelhof, Eisigfurt, Siegfriedhof or Egling with Waldenhof and the rest of the railway net. With the exception of Siegfriedhof to Eisigfurt, all lines in Sylvania are twin tracked.

At Kemperbad, the Stirland line branches off. It connects northern Stirland and southern Talabecland with the railway net. With stops, among others, at Welleborn, Münzhausen, Wurtbad, Niedling, (a northern branch runs via Krugenheim to Vorderbergen) Zipf and Vorderbergen, it crosses the Stir at Bissendorf into the Ostermark. Where it continues through Kiel(Empire), Seuthes to Bechafen, the capital of the Ostermark, further to the end station Fortenhaf, in northeastern Ostermark.

I think some of you interested in politics will remember that this line, the first railway in the Ostermark, was one of the reasons the fight against the Chaos Stumpies was so complicated. Since there had been no time to lay down further railways in Ostermark at that point in history, all resources for the troops fighting had first to be sent to Bechafen, then with river barges and trucks over problematic roads all the way to Nagenhof and Weiler.
As you can imagine, the next railway route built in the Ostermark was from Bechafen via Remer, Zeisholz and others to Nagenhof and Weiler. This railway line has been lengthened deep into the World Edge´ Mountains with settlements and forward defense in mind.

Other important lines in the Ostermark are Nagenhof-Karak Kadrin, Osterwald via Burgenhof to Eisigfurt and Blutfurt to Waldenhof. Both lines are shortcuts to the Sylvania part of the net.

At Altdorf, the Talabecline branches East. It runs through all of northern Talabecland, with stops among others, at Volgen, Ravenstein, Talabheim, Lochrafurt, Vienau, Grunwald and a sideline to Kappelburg. Final head station of this twin track is Steinhof in Ostland.
Likewise going out from Altdorf is the Middenheim line. It follows closely the Old Middenheim Road with stops, only typical ones, at Kutenholz, Brockel, Mittelweg, Malstedt, Schonninghagen to Middenheim. From Middenheim the railway line goes further north, via Arenburg into Nordland. After Salzenmund it forks in two directions. One to Dietershafen with the end point in Schlaghügel in western Nordland. The other via Beeckerhoven, Luftberg, Wilhelmskoog, Norden into Ostland. In Ostland this track runs through Salkalten and Schönfeld to the border with Kislev. Today this track finally ends in the Kislevite port city Erengrad.

The routes I mentionend are just the first ones of the Empire, other likewise important tracks exist. The ‚Averland Stich' connects central Averland with southern Stirland and Wissenland, making Hornau in southern Stirland an important track hub
The route Salkalten down through Ferlangen, Wolfenburg to Wurzen is the most important line in Ostland proper.
The line between Talabheim and Wurtbad does not only connect central Talabecland and the capitals of Talabecland and Stirland, but is an important shortcut on the eastern main railways.

Hergig-Middenheim is another important interior railway through Hoch- and Middenland.
Beside their civilian use, the lines Altdorf-Bogenhafen-Helmgart, Nuln-Blutfeste (Blood Keep) and Wolfenburg-Grenzburg are especially important to the military. Heisenberg and Nehren are equally important military and civilian railway heads.
Nagenhof with it's proximity to the Goblin Special Administration Zone I already mentioned before.
Despite the many thousands of kilometers in the existing railway net, the Empire is extending it daily. Nothing shows the worth of the railway as trains from the Moot or Wissenland being unloaded in port cities like Salzenmund, Dietershafen or Norden onto ships outbound to the maritime trade routes of the Warhammer World.
About a generation ago, the trade goods from the West, South and East of the Empire were trickling into the ports in sacks and barrels, relatively small in number. Today tons and tons of it reaches the ports, other parts of the Empire and Germany in long, well-filled cargo trains.