AN: Edited by Gremlin Jack, perfect_shade, and Nla Eid.
January 9th, 1945, in the East Jiuzhou Sea:
Green and his mage company surveyed the distant shoreline of Shanghai. He had originally hoped that a blockade would be enough to get them to come back to the peace talks, and when that wasn't working, maybe some bombing runs. Now it increasingly appears that the CSR's leadership were stubborn about the odds that were stacked against them. He spun up a voice spell and said, "I'm not seeing anything significant. No response to our blockade, not even aerial mages to respond to us. They still have cargo ships and fishing vessels continue to sail close to their coastline. The only activity we have seen is heavy activity with their coastal artillery guns."
"Continue to maintain observation." Green's orb crackled from Captain Pitt's response. "The fleet is going to be repositioned closer to deal with their ships that are hugging their coastline, while staying away from their coastal defenses. Report back if you see any coastal guns being moved away from Shanghai."
"Another few hours of this and we'll be back to the HMS Prince of Wales." Green said. "Hopefully the communists don't try something desperate."
"I can't believe we're not actively hunting those fishing boats. What kind of a blockade is this?" One of the mages asked.
"We all know the CSR is using those wooden boats as reconnaissance platforms." Green complained. "But the admiralty doesn't want bad publicity from opening fire on unarmed civilian vessels as long as they stay outside of our ships' maximum effective gun range and don't appear to be smuggling cargo. Last thing we want is to give the communists more propaganda material for them to use to convince their population to keep up with the war effort."
"And what if a few of them have mages on board? That would seriously complicate attempts at boarding each one of those floating wooden crafts." another mage interjected. "It would be the horror version of jack-in-the-box as we would never know which one of them has an ace up their sleeve."
"That's why we're here with lots of fighter plane cover, and all of our ships have upgraded anti-air capability." Green responded. "It would be a live fire target practice session for us if they tried rushing us with aerial mages."
January 20th, 1945, in the East Jiuzhou Sea:
Yang Huimin woke up from her nap. All of the A and B tier mages had received a crash course on how to be a fisherman. Although that was still a walk in the park compared to learning how to operate the Type 97 orbs while also teaching the augmented C-tier mages how to make the most efficient use of their very limited mana before they're effectively bedridden for days. Then, they also had to learn how to swim and operate underwater with their snorkels.
All in all, her nap was more than warranted.
About a dozen of the A and B tier mages had been packed into this tiny fishing vessel in the cover of night before the vessel set sail. Now they just had to pretend to be some miserable boat crew while waiting for the signal. The only thing that kept her from being utterly bored out of her mind was running her imaginations of getting back together with Chen Shusheng after this stupid war finally ends.
"I think I see the carrier with its escorts." one of the mages called out while discreetly looking through the binoculars.
"Considering that their bombers' flight paths hardly deviated, and assuming their carriers had been loitering in the same area, it was only a matter of time." Yang Huimin said.
"We'll stick around for a bit to catch some fish, and then head back to the harbor to report the carrier's location." one of the actual fishermen called out.
A warning message was broadcast from the radio. It was a pre-recorded message in their language telling them to stay away or they will be fired upon. A warning shell whizzed nearby and splashed into the water.
"We're turning back now!" the same fisherman yelled.
In the CSR:
Zhang Wentian had not slept well for days.
The only anti-air defenses the CSR had readily available were concentrated around the coastal defense guns. Without those guns, the Albish could proceed with amphibious landings with impunity. Which meant that the Albish planes were effectively free to bomb whatever target of their choosing.
And now the Akinese fleet has also been spotted farther north, along with Germanian destroyers pulling into Akitsushima Dominion's ports. Everyone knew what the Aki with their Germanian ally were going for. Joseon.
With these odds, to dream of a total victory against the forces arrayed against them would be foolish. Instead, they'll have to seize any form of victory today at any cost… even if said price is of nightmarish proportions.
"...I can't believe we're sending about 200 natural mages and 800 augmented mages to a one way mission." Zhang Wentian groaned, putting his head in his hands. "The augmented mages will definitely all be dead from this."
"Sacrifices have to be made for victory." Luo Ronghuan said. "As long as the coalition thinks we can throw another 1000 mages at them after all of this, they won't ever threaten our homeland again."
Zhang Wentian could only hope that his associate was correct in his assessment.
AN, a Youtube video to set the mood: watch?v=MZHGpMtaEOU
January 24th, 1945, in the East Jiuzhou Sea, at night time:
As the HMS Bulldog destroyer's boarding motor boats began to attach themselves to the CSR cargo ship that had complied with their order to stop the engine and prepare for boarding, one of the junior officers asked the captain, "Sir, don't you find it suspicious that their five cargo ships are trying to run our blockade in the middle of the night?"
Captain Pitt nods in reply, "Yes, I do. But even if they have mages on board, we have the firepower, mages and overhead fighter planes to reduce the cargo ship to scrap metal and shred any mages that try to fly toward us." The Captain responded with indifference. "I suppose the worst case situation is that they try to counter board us, which we would simply button up for a siege while our other ships rain high explosive shells to clear our decks of the enemy mages."
As the Albish boarding parties entered the cargo ship, there were suddenly streaks of magic anti-tank rifle rounds coming from the middle of the water from different locations.
The bridge shook from the impact as everyone grabbed onto something. The sound phone ranged and an officer picked it up, then relayed the message to the captain. "Captain! I-Its gone! They took out our radio antennas, It's a trap!"
"Where are the magic rounds coming from!?", the captain barked as more anti-tank rounds flew in, this time aiming for the Albish mages that were hovering above the destroyer.
A sailor manning the magic voice spell receiver shouted, "Two of our mages are down, but the one with the long range radio avoided the hits and is now calling for help!"
Captain Pitt dropped his tobacco pipe in shock as the short range radios screamed out from his boarding parties being ambushed inside the cargo ship. A horde of people came pouring out of the cargo ship and boats were being launched as the cargo ship's crew raised the CSR's battle ensign. The Albish motor boats were also seized by the augmented mages to conduct a "return to sender" against the destroyer.
There were sudden movements out of the water. The CSR aerial mages had emerged from the water to attack the Albish mages. Immediately afterward, a cruiser and two sloops within view of the HMS Bulldog suffered major underwater explosions. A sloop and another destroyer off in the distance hadn't been hit yet.
In the bridge of the sloop HMS Starling:
"Pitt. You fool." Captain Eaton muttered as he watched the HMS Bulldog off in the distance be attacked by the CSR aerial mages.
He picked up the intercom phone and ordered, "Deploy depth charges! All of them! Set for minimum depths!"
He then spun around to face the helmsman. "All ahead flank, hard a-starboard!"
"All ahead flank, hard a-starboard, aye sir!" the helmsman repeated back.
The unaffected destroyer in front of his ship had already started dumping their depth charges into the water with their crew frantically throwing depth charges off the direct starboard and port side of the ships instead of the standard stern side deployment. The destroyer fired a barrage at the cargo ship and he could see many, many people continue to pour out of the now burning cargo ship.
"How many mages did they pack in the cargo ships?" he asked himself when some of the CSR mages emerged out of the water and right in front of the destroyer's ready anti-aircraft weapons, resulting in many of them being shredded at point blank range before the few survivors landed on the destroyer's deck to return the favor by tearing into the destroyer's crew. Right before the destroyer could fire another barrage at the cargo ship, it suffered the same explosive fate as the other ships and began to rapidly take on water.
The two earlier impacted sloops were breaking apart, the destroyer rapidly sank but managed to fire another barrage at the cargo ship out of defiance before the bow slipped below the water, and the cruiser's lights flickered off.
Under the HMS Starling:
Tao Xingchun cursed when one of the depth charges exploded nearby when the ship was already aggressively maneuvering, knocking the second attempt's explosive packs' magnetic attachments off of the hull. They had lost one of the explosive packs much earlier when they deployed from the cargo ship and swam head-on toward the general direction of the inbound Albish ships. Their first attempt with the second explosive pack failed when the timer was jammed, and when one of his mages swam over to manually detonate the bomb herself as a sacrifice, that was when the depth charges started raining down on them and put a premature end to her sacrifice. They had their magic shields up, but the depth charges were proving to be too much for them to handle.
"Everyone, get to the surface and clear the sloop's deck!" he said after activating his voice spell. "I'll activate the explosive myself!"
"Commander-" one of the mages attempted to protest before a depth charge ended their life.
"That's an order!" he transmitted as he swam over to one of the loose explosive packs, hugged it to his chest, and powered up his flight spell to charge straight at the underside of the sloop.
Right when a depth charge exploded nearby, he pressed the manual detonate switch on the explosive pack.
On the HMS Bulldog:
The dozen Albish mages that were assigned to the destroyer exchanged fire with the CSR's counter boarding parties and the few B and A tier mages. Some of the Albish fighter planes operating in the area were alerted by the explosions and had arrived to strafe the motor boats and the cargo ship. That was when the remaining augmented mages on the burning cargo ship revealed their next surprise, DShK heavy machine guns with magic ammunition. In the ensuing brief chaos, the destroyer received some damages, the cargo ship began to sink, the Albish mages and planes were routed, many of the augmented mages laid dead, and many regular humans caught in the crossfire were also dead.
Captain Pitt watched on with horror as the surviving augmented mages from the cargo ship began to board his ships with their motor boats. They were armed with sawed-off double barreled shotguns, copies of sawed-off Winchester Model 1897 shotguns, Russy submachine guns, semi-automatic rifles, swords, hatchets, axes, crowbars, sledge hammers and cutting torches. It did not take long for the sound phones to constantly blare with reports of his crew making a last stand against the augmented mages.
Meanwhile some of the motor boats approached the now slightly damaged HMS Starling and the stricken cruiser. The cruiser was beginning to restore power and the gunnery crew decided to fire their shots without waiting for fire control systems to be restored. A few shells struck the already sinking and burning cargo ship, and the shrapnel from the explosions shredded any CSR mages or sailors that were still close to the ship. The augmented mages destroyed the cruiser's manually operated weapons with their magic DShK machine gun bullets before jumping onto its deck, beginning their slugfest against the cruiser's crew. The HMS Starling, having just fought off the few aerial mages that were forced out of the water from its depth charges, opened fire to disperse the motor boats while sailing away from the area at flank speed.
AN: Youtube video links to set the mood
From the CSR's perspective: watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A
From the Albish perspective: watch?v=LDU1G5GhBfM
In the HMS Bulldog's dining and galley (kitchen) area:
An Albish officer with an arm in a sling, was singing "God Save the King" as the sparks flew from the boarders using a cutting torch against the barricaded hatch. It had already been dented from the boarders' previous attempt at smashing it with magic enhanced axes and sledgehammers.
Long live our noble King
God save the King
An augmented mage kicked open the hatch after finishing cutting through it, and was immediately met with hurled pots of boiling and smoking grease, fats and oil. While he did have his shield up, it only provided enough insulation to reduce it from a lethal burn to an incredibly painful one.
Send him victorious...
Then matches were thrown to ignite the flammable liquids covering the screaming mage, which was enough to overwhelm his weak shield.
Happy and glorious...
Two sailors in heavy firefighting gear that were standing next to the entrance moved in to shut the hatch and place a metal bar behind it, secured with hastily installed brackets.
Long to reign over us...
"And that's how you make fish n' chips!" one of the Albish cooks yelled.
God save the King...
Suddenly a burst of shotgun and submachine gun fire from the other side of the raging fire shredded the cook and three other people before the hatch could be shut.
O Lord our God arise...
Two grenades came flying in right when the hatch closed. An Albish defender threw their body onto the first grenade to absorb the blast. The second grenade ricocheted off of a table, then a wall and then rolled into a storeroom through a small gap in the door where many of the wounded Albish crew members were taking refuge.
Scatter his enemies...
Blood curdling screams echoed from the storeroom moments before the grenade went off. The next augmented mage smashed through the hatch and was struck in the face and throat by the swinging heavy tools from the two nearby sailors in the firefighting gear. Although the mage's shield prevented any injuries, he fell into the fire from the impacts and the greasy, slippery floor.
And make them fall...
The two sailors swung their heavy tools again to bludgeon the fallen mage. They were quickly gunned down and the next augmented mage charged through and plowed through one of the barricades from his momentum, crushing two Albish crew members against another barricade.
Confound their politics...
The marines concentrated gunfire into the mage to overwhelm his shield, but that allowed more augmented mages to storm through the fire and into the dining area unopposed. The singing officer fired his revolver one handed.
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save us all
The marines exchanged gunfire with the augmented mages and the sailors continued operating makeshift weapons or hurling projectiles. Some of the sailors had also hooked up the fire hoses to the ship's firefighting water line to spray at the augmented mages with high pressure water.
Thy choicest gifts in store
On he be pleased to pour
An augmented mage that got close was splashed with a bucket of boiling beef tallow and a few matches. Because the mage had concentrated much of their mana into the shielding, that allowed him to temporarily shrug off the fire and charge straight into a group of Albish defenders to give them all a fiery bear hug.
Long may he reign...
The Albish sailors manning the firehose sprayed at the burning augmented mage in panic, but they quickly learned the hard way of why water is never to be used against grease fire as they instead ended up spreading the fire.
May he defend our laws...
Some of the defenders focused their gunfire on the human torch before it could hug more of them, distracting them from the other augmented mages. Screams echoed in the dining area from multiple people flailing around on fire before being gunned down in the crossfire. The singing officer took a bullet to the stomach, but got back up and propped himself up against the wall to resume singing.
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
God save the King
The augmented mages' superior firepower increasingly suppressed the Albish defenders, especially with the shotgun mages using physical enhancement and reflex spells to dramatically speed up their shotgun firing and reloading to shower the entire dining and galley area with rapid fire buckshots. The augmented mages began to advance into the galley after finishing off the last of the Albish defenders in the dining area.
God save all dressed in green
Long live our noble King
God save the King
Send him victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the King
Two of the augmented mages jumped over a barricade and into the suppressed Albish crew, with their melee weapons drawn.
Onboard the HMS Warspite battleship:
"Sink it, don't let it get within visual range of us. Tell our escorts to also fire at any of those 'fishing vessels' that are within range. We will be sailing at full speed to leave the area afterward." Admiral Cunningham said as he looked again at the map plotting. "And radio the HMS Prince of Wales that we have taken care of the blockade runner and will be rejoining their formation."
"Sir, those are technically civilian ships." Captain Parker replied. "Should we at least fire warning shots?"
"Damn straight we're firing live rounds to kill. A lone rust bucket that would have struggled to outrun our old battleship is part of a group of five that are all trying to run a blockade that they would have never been able to succeed. I know what a blockade runner looks like, and this looks incredibly lazy. And coincidentally there are still the 'fishing vessels' that remain in the area. I don't know what they are up to, but I don't want to find out."
"What if we are wrong?" Captain Parker asked.
"Either I will be decorated, or I will be court-martialed."
"Gunnery officer reports that all main batteries are ready to fire on the cargo ship." another officer called out. "Secondary turrets are also ready to engage the fishing vessels."
"On my command. Fire!"
After the first barrage finished, a distant fireball could be seen. The cargo ship no longer appeared on the radar when seven of the eight 15-inch high explosive shells impacted the ship. The radio operator shouted, "HMS Beagle reported that they are under attack by mages launched from the fishing vessel! They were not involved with any of the cargo ship boarding operations."
"Now it makes sense..." Captain Parker clenched his fist. "...The cargo ships were a distraction so their fishing vessels could pick off any of our isolated ships that weren't in formation."
"We're going to be running at flank speed and gather up all of the isolated ships along our way." Admiral Cunningham said, not noticing his subordinate's epiphany. "I have a feeling the HMS Prince of Wales and its single escorting cruiser might be a tempting target."
In the HMS Dorsetshire cruiser:
Chen Shusheng and several other mages were trapped in a compartment. He knew they were below the waterline, and the only option for the stubborn Albish crew is to flood the compartment to kill the mages.
He took a deep breath. He wished he had more time with Yang Huimin, but if the rest of the mages were to survive, he had only one option.
He pressed down on the heavy mana use button and held it. One of the mages was about to stop him, when another one blocked them and said "All we can do is avenge his death and keep him in our memory."
He let out a guttural roar from the overwhelming sensation, and grabbed a sledgehammer out of one of the mages' hands.
"Finally we can kill some of those commie bastards." a chief petty officer said. "Start the compartment flooding."
"8 down, another 100 to go." a sailor bitterly remarked as they continued to hear the fighting occurring elsewhere in the ship.
Suddenly there were loud bangs and the watertight door's hinges gave away one by one from the massive pounding on the other side.
"Did we lock in an A-tier mage?" one of the sailors said, right before the watertight door came flying off and they were now staring at a very angry mage. The rest of the CSR mages in the compartment backed away.
"Bollocks." the chief petty officer said as the mage charged forward with the sledgehammer that was crackling with magic.
Elsewhere in the East Jiuzhou Sea, around the HMS Prince of Wales:
"Captain Green, we need you to dispatch three more of your mage companies." Green's orb crackled.
"Sir, that would leave me with a single mage company to protect the HMS Prince of Wales and her escorting cruiser. The rest of the escorts had been stripped away for cargo ship boarding actions."
"We will be getting the Warspite and her escorts back. There has been serious trouble with the cargo ship boarding actions. We're getting reports from the fighter planes and one of our mage companies about our ships being under heavy attack, but we can't communicate with some of the ships for some reason. One task group reported that they had successfully fought off an ambush but some of them are heading straight for Akitsushima Dominion for emergency repairs. The cargo ships also packed a fair amount of anti-aircraft firepower to cause trouble for the planes. The admirals are deeply concerned."
He suddenly felt cold. "And the other mages that I had already sent to assist those ships with the boarding?"
"Other than the one mage company that had been broadcasting radio reports with the last one stating that they were engaging over a hundred enemy mages, we're not sure."
Chen Shusheng vomited as soon as he reached the surface deck. The mages that noticed him had a look of surprise. It was probably because he was completely covered in blood and gore.
"Chen Shusheng, are you okay?" one of the mages.
He wiped away his mouth. "I-It's not my blood. I… I think I'm fine. Just a bit tired and sick, but it doesn't feel like I'm dying."
He looked around and saw many other augmented mages sitting or lying down on the deck, obviously in pain from overuse of the energy liquids.
"That's impossible, you were on that suicidal usage for nearly 20 seconds!" the other mage shouted in disbelief.
He would've shrugged were it not for his heaving shoulders. "I don't know!" He hacks and coughs as he spits out yet another string of reddened spittle "Argh, my pack is feeling a bit light, I might need a refill. And I think I need to replace my orb as it's malfunctioning."
"We didn't bring any spare tanks or orbs, but you can take my pack because clearly you used more liquid than I did." the other mage responded.
Someone activated their optical spell while using binoculars. Their quiet muttering were then instantly replaced by a loud shout:
"TORPEDOES! TORPEDOES IN THE WATER!"
Onboard the HMS Pandora submarine:
"Two direct hits. That cruiser won't last for long. We're ready to fire on the destroyer as well." an officer reported to the captain.
"Those communists weren't here to just sink our ships. They wanted to take them as prizes and reverse engineer them to build their own navy!" the captain sneered. "Fire when ready."
Right after another volley was fired, the periscope operator's face turned white. "Captain, a few of their mages are going up in the sky and they're heading straight for us! And we have a swimmer from the cruiser gunning for us!"
Chen Shusheng clambered onto the surfaced Albish submarine after it had been forced to the surface by the A and B tier mages' explosive spells. One of the mages was acting as a translator, and using his Type 97 orb to transmit the translated conversation, they could all listen in.
"If you scuttle the submarine, all of you will die." the translator said.
The Ablish officer retorted, "It's too late now, we already started the process."
"The destroyer and the cruiser you torpedoed are sinking, and our mages are too exhausted to fly back to land." the translator threw his arms up in the air. "Congratulations. It also has many Albish prisoners on board, including their captain. And all of them will be the last ones to go on the lifeboat. Your submarine is what will save your fellow shipmates."
"The captain won't allow you to take the submarine." the officer responded.
"Well, Sledgehammer Man over here can solve that problem. He was covered in Albish blood before swimming over here." the translator pointed at Chen. "How many officers does he have to turn into tenderized meat for you to become the acting captain of the submarine?"
Chen had magic flickering off of the sledgehammer. The officer immediately yelled down the hatch to halt the scuttling.
Around the HMS Prince of Wales:
Yang Huimin and the mage platoon under her command blasted off from the fishing vessel they had been on board. Normally there should have been an officer in charge, but the chaotic nature of the operation resulted in a shortage of them in certain areas, including her area of operation. Originally they were supposed to go after the three cruisers with several destroyers that were steaming straight for the cargo ships. But she noticed that left the battleship with just a heavy cruiser as its only escort, minimal Albish mage presence after so many of them had been sent off to respond to the cargo ships' boarding actions, and the fighter cover had also been sent off to the cargo ships' area. As far as she knows, it seems to be the only Albish battleship in the area as she had not heard any reporting of other battleships.
She would have preferred to sneak up underwater, but because of the cruiser and battleship firing at max range, and the long distance they would have to cover if they were to swim, the new plan was to swarm from the side where the cruiser was blocking much of the battleship's anti-air weapons. The other mage commanders were all too happy to take on the big prize even if it meant the deaths of most of them.
All they had to do was distract the two ships and the single mage company long enough for the augmented mages to arrive in their motor boats to swarm the decks. Some of the motorboats had their magically charged explosive packs to increase the number of explosive boats.
The cruiser's secondary turrets began to open fire at the mages. About half of the mages hanged back with their 14.5 millimeter anti-tank rifles and worked on picking off the anti-air weapons or taking shots at the Albish mages while trying to avoid the cruiser's secondary turret fire. They couldn't penetrate the secondary turrets, but they could still wreck unprotected systems, such as the QF 2-pounder naval guns and radar systems that had no armor to protect them.
Captain Green silently cursed as he tried to formulate a plan to salvage the situation and buy enough time for the HMS Warspite and her escorts to arrive. The fishing vessels that had been staying just outside of the ships' firing range had deployed motor boats.
The two ships' main batteries, secondaries and their close range anti-aircraft weapons would have made short work of almost all of those motor boats and the CSR mages. Except the two ships' main and secondary batteries were effectively blinded with all of their radar sets, rangefinders and searchlights turned into scrap metal from the incoming heavy magic rounds. Green had fought in Bharat long enough to recognize those were the 14.5mm anti-tank rifles that the CSR mages often used. The sniper mages had focused on one part of each ship at a time to reduce the amount of anti-aircraft fire they were receiving, while the others were quickly closing the distance for close range combat. The turrets had internal rangefinders, but many of them were damaged from the sniper mages' attempts which meant they had to fall back to the Mark I Eyeballs to try to land hits against the small crafts or mages in the middle of the night.
He could try to push forward to finish off the few remaining sniper mages as they had taken heavy losses from the ships' secondary turret fire before the ships were blinded, but that meant leaving the ships unprotected against the rest of the CSR mages that were approaching fast.
Suddenly the volume of 14.5mm rounds drastically decreased, and then he could see that many of the sniper mages were discarding their heavy weapons and charging in as well.
"Stay close to the ship or get on their decks." a mage commander ordered. "If the Albish mages want to fight us, they will have to fire on their own ship!"
Many of the CSR mages were now directly between the cruiser and battleship or between a ship and the Albish mages. This also meant that they were taking significant casualties from being sandwiched between two sources of enemy fire.
Yang Huimin raked a set of the battleship's QF 2-pounder naval guns with explosive spells, and immediately dodged to avoid an Albish mage's gunfire which struck the battleship's crew instead. She watched the heavier QF 5.25-inch naval guns struggle to aim at the mages that were right next to the battleship.
As for the main batteries, one of them had already been disabled when a mage ignited a satchel charge against it to protect the inbound motor boats from the 14 inch shells.
Small arms fire flickered off of her shield. She ignored it while blasting another set of the far more dangerous QF 2-pounder guns, while one of her mages landed on the ship and started painting the deck red.
Green cursed loudly when a 5.25 inch shell missed a CSR mage and hit one of his mages, ending that mage's existence. Another 5.25 inch shell from the cruiser struck the battleship. No fighter cover and it was just his mage company going up against what appeared to be an overstrength battalion of mages that are now positioning themselves between his mages and the ship, between the two ships, or carving up the sailors and marines. There were many more CSR mages riding on motor boats for some reason.
He carefully aimed at one of the mages that looked like she was commanding her company, then pulled the trigger.
Yang Huimin powered up her shield to blunt the blast from a ship's anti-aircraft shell that exploded nearby. Suddenly she felt a brief sharp pain and then numbness. She looked down and saw the gaping bullet holes, with one that went through her spinal cord. An Albish mage had landed hits on her when her shield was focused in the other direction.
As she tumbled out of the sky and towards the water, she watched motor boats with DShK heavy machine guns or light machine guns onboard began raking the two ships' decks with magic explosions, or fire on the Albish mages, which significantly turned the tide of the battle for the control of the air.
All of the explosive motorboats homed on the cruiser with the augmented mages jumping out. The explosion rocked the cruiser, and it soon started losing power to some of its systems as multiple compartments simultaneously flooded.
She smiled as augmented C-tier mages began jumping from their motorboats and onto the battleship's decks, or if they couldn't jump high enough, they attached themselves to the hull and began climbing up like ants on a wall. As she sank into the ocean, she saw Chen Shusheng's face and her playing aerial lacrosse flickering in her imagination. Then her world blacked out.
"There's nothing more we can do here. Retreat!" Captain Green ordered as he watched the heavy cruiser remain dead in the water with all of its manually guided cannons destroyed. There were just three of his mages left, and maybe six CSR aerial mages. He could have had a chance to defeat them if it wasn't for the motor boats continuing to fire their machine guns up at him.
"Where do we go?" one of the Albish mages asked.
"We warn the rest of the fleet and hope that they either rescue our ships, or sink them before they end up in the communists' hands!" Green shouted before powering up his orb to fly away at full speed.
In the bridge of the HMS Prince of Wales:
"Admiral, the enemy mages are demanding us to surrender. But HMS Warspite is less than half an hour away." a radio operator called out.
The admiral remained silent for a moment, mentally going over his possible options as he looked at his senior officers before then looking away and muttering a poem that surfaced in the midst of his turbulent mind:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
His officers heard and nodded. Soon, an augmented mage that had been climbing up to the bridge from the outside had smashed open a window. Simultaneously, sparks flew from one of the hatches as other augmented mages were cutting their way in. All of the officers and other crew members immediately pointed their pistols and revolvers at the broken window and moments later, the augmented mage's body came falling down from the bridge and bounced off of one of the steel structures in the midst of the chaos unfolding on the deck.
Three more augmented mages knocked down the hatch and stormed into the bridge.
In the captured HMS Sheffield cruiser's engineering spaces, somewhere else in the sea:
"Why isn't this ship going any faster?" the CSR mage translator demanded.
"It can't." the Albish officer retorted.
"Bullshit, we had foreign agents tell us your ships are capable of three times the current speed."
The CSR mage shouts something, and two other augmented mages grab one of the Albish sailors to restrain them with chains.
The Albish officer looked on with confusion. "What are you doing?"
"Have you ever heard of slow slicing?"
"No?..."
"Then you're about to find out, and we'll keep doing it until the ship is going fast enough." The translator smiled. "Don't worry, they won't die from it though."
"That's war crime."
The Albish sailor began to scream and sob while one of the CSR mages worked with their knife.
"How many sailors are you willing to sacrifice? Besides, why worry about war crimes when your navy decides to scuttle this ship?" The translator asked. "I can assure you that we would be the first ones to get off of a sinking ship, and not even your captain would escape alive."
Suddenly the other augmented mage that was watching the torture dropped dead on the spot. The translator mage and Albish officer looked on with confusion.
Then the ship's announcement system yelled out something. The Albish crew had no idea what was said, but all of the CSR mages onboard the ship received an order.
An Albish mage battalion was arriving. Purge the prisoners and prepare to resist boarding actions.
Sometime later, in Shanghai's port:
As Chen Shusheng got off of the overcrowded submarine, he was overcome with nausea, but pushed on with helping medics carry the sickened mages off the submarine to a field hospital.
He had gone through multiple backpacks because of how much energy liquid he used, and how fast he burned out the single core orbs. The Albish had made multiple attempts at trying to sink the submarine with air attacks, and the only thing keeping the planes at bay was a handful of DShK machine guns. The augmented mages that operated those guns were all dead, they had died from overdose of the energy liquid. The few remaining augmented mages were in very bad shape.
After they had offloaded the last of the mages from the submarine, a doctor, a military officer, and what appeared to be a group of state security officers approached him.
"Chen Shusheng, how many tanks of energy liquid did you use?" the doctor asked him.
He knew exactly what they were looking for no matter what he said. Maybe if he was a fresh recruit instead of being someone who fought in Sibyria, marched through Afghanistan, fought more battles in North Bharat, sent through a mage training school and thrown into a near suicide mission to board Albish ships, he would have given them the exact answer. But he was not a naive recruit anymore.
"Before you take me away, I have one request." he said.
"What is it?"
"Could you find Yang Huimin? I would like to see her again."
"We'll look for her." the military officer responded. "But I can't promise anything. The casualties we sustained were very high."
Chen Shusheng nods, feeling slightly relieved. If there's someone who could survive this battle, then it would be Yang Huimin.
AN:
I asked on the Spacebattles forum if it was possible for magic detectors to pick up on the underwater magically charged explosives before they explode. It seems that unless the Albish was intensively actively searching for magically enchanted items, their magic detectors would not notice them. I also assumed that 15 meters of water would be enough to distort any faint magic emissions: threads/youjo-senki-fic-idea-rec-and-discussion.515293/page-268?post=79308178#post-79308178
To note, there is a scene in LN Volume Nine where Tanya and select members of the 203rd manage to pull off an ambush against the Albish Navy via using massive torpedoes that they had to ride on to aim, and were constantly using an air supply spell as they were steering it. Until they left the torpedoes and rushed up into the air to engage in combat, they apparently were not detected.
Then again, the Albish Navy's Magical Sensors might have been aimed to detect signals from the air, and not underwater, at that point in time.
wiki/HMS_Pandora_(N42)
She began her service in the Eastern Mediterranean in June 1940. In July, she was tasked with operations against the French Fleet near Oran off the coast of Algeria. On 4 July 1940, she sank the French ship, Rigault de Genouilly near Algiers.
wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K
The attack was the main part of Operation Catapult, a British plan to neutralise or destroy French ships to prevent them from falling into German hands after the Allied defeat in the Battle of France. The British bombardment of the base killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleship and damaged five other ships, for a British loss of five aircraft shot down and two crewmen killed.[3]
Inspiration for the motor boat assaults:
Iranian small boat swarms
WW2 Italian Navy's raids with small craft and frogmen operations against Allied ships: watch?v=Zn4Gjueziig
wiki/Operation_Downfall#Operation_Ketsug
In addition, Japan had about 100 Kōryū-class midget submarines, 300 smaller Kairyū-class midget submarines, 120 Kaiten manned torpedoes,[55] and 2,412 Shin'yō suicide motorboats.[56] Unlike the larger ships, these, together with the destroyers and fleet submarines, were expected to see extensive action defending the shores, with a view to destroying about 60 Allied transports.[57]
The Navy trained a unit of frogmen to serve as suicide bombers, the Fukuryu. They were to be armed with contact-fuzed mines, and to dive under landing craft and blow them up. An inventory of mines was anchored to the sea bottom off each potential invasion beach for their use by the suicide divers, with up to 10,000 mines planned. Some 1,200 suicide divers had been trained before the Japanese surrender.[58][59]
"Fried human" scene that I got my idea from: watch?v=DTtETj3MtzA
"That's not fair" scene: /0_4nmW5GZhQ?t=1347
As for why the Albish fleet didn't just sail up to the coastline and engage in a gunnery duel with the coastal artillery guns, while they would have won in a sustained engagement with their full fleet, their ships would be beaten up in the process. Such as this movie scene: watch?v=YZ79i11JSnU