08:40 386 km North-North West of Helms Shoals,
Namreg, N.P.S. Valkyrie, Namreggian Line of Battle, course 28 grads (158°), Speed 45 kph
Midshipman Fowler had gained control of the Valkryie. Giving up on restoring the helm in either the battle or navigation bridges, he had a damage control portable phone taken to the steering room and the engine rooms, with wires lain through the corridors and up the stairs to the flag bridge, which had the ship's last working compass.
"Steering room, rudders to standard turn to port." Fowler ordered the Ensign in charge of the steering room.
"Sir." The runner from the lookout crew reported. No phone had ever been installed to the flag bridge from the lookouts.
"Report Seaman." Fowler made the motion of a salute, still holding the portable phone.
"Two messages from the flagship, sir." The messenger begun, still panting from his run down the ladders. "First, to all ships in the main line of battle, maintain course and speed, disregard previous order to turn."
Fowler felt the fur on the nape of his neck rise in embarrassment as he interrupted the messenger and frantically cranked the handle that would ring the bell on the opposite end of the line.
"Don't turn!!!" he shouted before the voice on the other end could finish a single word.
"Rudder one point to starboard" Fowler continued. He handed the phone to the helmsman standing next to the small auxiliary compass.
"Keep the ship on course 28 grads" he told the helmsman, who was staring blankly at him.
"And the other message?" he asked, turning back to the still panting messenger.
"To N.P.S. Valkyrie, state nature of problems." The messenger said simply.
Fowler then had the humiliation of having to explain to Vice Admiral Talisman why his first order to turn wasn't followed, or at least until after he had rescinded the order. This wasn't how he had imagined his first command to be.
"Send this by flag." He ordered. That would insure that the other ships would see and understand his situation as well. "Command crew dead. Both bridges destroyed. Helm control restored by expedient means. Awaiting orders. Midshipman Fowler commanding" He couldn't help his ears rising with pride at the last statement.
The messenger repeated the signal to him, saluted, and left, still panting.
WHAMM….WHAMM….
The first of the two shells from Goliath impacted Valkyrie just inside of the port handrail. The 40 cw shell ripped thought the armor of the secondary battery below, destroying one gun and continuing just inside the hull, detonating about 3 meter below the water line, well below the armor belt. The explosion ripped open the inner hull and put several holes in the outer hydrolance bulge. Several inner watertight doors leaked heavily, but none failed. This was lucky as no damage control crew was available to stop the leaks. The fire in the secondary battery continued to burn, being fought only by what remained of the gun crews nearby.
The second 40 cw armor piercing shell struck just ahead of the C turret, just port of the ship's centerline. It wrecked one of the empty seaplane catapults, passed through the ship's tailor shop and the post office. Below this it ripped through a compartment full of plumbing used for the hot water heating systems and then into the main armored deck over the port engine room. The armor had been designed several decades before to resist up to 30 cw gunfire. It didn't stop the 40 cw round.
The armor piercing round struck the port turbine in the valve chest. The explosion of the busting charge was anti-climatic, with 450° C steam filling the engine room instantly from the shattered steam valves. The entire engine room crew was boiled alive by the superheated steam that pressurized the room and blew back out of all of ventilation ducts.
Luckly the turbine itself didn't come apart, and only slowed to a stop, along with the port propeller it powered. The armored bulkhead between the port and starboard engine rooms held.
The Valkyrie immediately swung to port, helped by the 1 point port turn just beginning to be taken off the rudders.
Given the delay imposed by relaying orders by phone from the helmsman to the crew operating the steering motors, it was actually quite a quick response by the crew to keep the swerve down to 300 meters. The offset in course was fortuitous in any case. For the Valkyrie would have had to get out of the following ships way or force them to turn to avoid running her down, slowing them in their headlong rush away from the enemy line of battle.
Even the chance direction of the swerve worked out for the best, as it put the Valkyrie on the far side of the fleet, away from the enemy destroyers, which had pulled many kilometers ahead of the Nareggian Task force, positioning themselves for a hydrolance attack.
08:44 383 km North-North West of Helms Shoals, Namreg, N.P.S.
Great Axe, Namreggian Line of Battle, course 28 grads (158°), Speed 45 kph
Vice Admiral Talisman stood on the starboard wing bridge, looking to the west south west. Three of his fleet's
light cruisers, the N.P.S. Knife, Stiletto and Dagger, and all of the 2nd as well as two of 5th Squadron's hydrolance destroyers had
already begun to engage the approaching Natribish destroyers. It was obvious, despite the enemy destroyers attempts to
hide their numbers with smoke, that a least two full squadrons of the enemy's fleet destroyers were positioning themselves for a hydrolance attack.
Ahead, he could see both of the protected cruisers, the N.P.S. Bulwark and Barrier, coming around the front of the fleet, both of their forward 20 cw gun turrets already firing as they charged the enemy destroyers.
Off to the starboard, his binoculars showed that the two Armored cruisers had begun firing their secondary batteries' 16 cw guns at the approaching enemy ships as well.
Talisman turned and looked down the starboard side of his flagship. All of his ships 16 cw guns were trained outboard, but had not begun to fire due to the Armored cruiser N.P.S. Bushwhack which was masking the oncoming enemy.
Turning again to face the bows, he raised his binoculars to study the battle cruiser Valkyrie as she was passed by the Battleaxe. He could see huge clouds of smoke and steam coming from her rear superstructure. More smoke poured from the base of her conning tower and he could see damage to her bridge areas. A blinker light on an undamaged walkway was flashing a message to the flagship. But the flags on her mast's told the story "Captain dead - Engine Damage - Making 30 kph - Fire Control Damage - Continuing to Fight, Request Assistance."
The Vice Admiral walked back into the battle bridge of the Great Axe. An Able Seaman swung the armored hatch closed after him. He looking out the small opening in the armored shutters protecting the view ports. The Great Axe had closed half the distance between itself and the Valkyrie by the time a signals Coxswain entered the battle bridge.
"Sir", the Coxswain saluted.
Vice Admiral Talisman and Commodore Haines both returned the salute.
"The Valkyrie reports a shell hit in her port side engine room. She's lost the port screw, and also her central fire control room and the main bridge." The signals coxswain continued. " She's requesting support, and states that she may be able to keep up 30 kph.
Talisman looked into Commodore Haines's eyes. Both knew that the enemy fleet was traveling at over 35 kilometers per hour and that any Namreggian ship which fell behind was going to be destroyed by the Natribish. And even if the whole task force slowed, it would only give the Natribish the chance to close and engage in a slugging match. That was a battle that the Natribish High Seas Fleet could afford. And that the Namreggian War Fleet could not.
This would be the last ride of the N.P.N. Valkyrie.
08:45 382 km North-North West of Helms Shoals, Namreg, N.P.S. Amazon, Namreggian Line of Battle, course 28 grads (158°), Speed 45 kph
Commodore Rafni looked off across the bows at the open sea ahead. His was now the first ship in the line of
battle. He had watched the huge cloud of smoke and steam bellow out of his ship's sister, saw her stagger out of
the line. As Amazon had pounded past her, he had seen the smashed superstructure, smoke pouring from hatchways, the
conning tower with it's wrecked bridges. And now his ship, with only a smashed stern to show for her battle, was at
the head of the line.
Ahead and to port, the enemy's latest salvo caused huge columns of water to splashed up, showing that the enemy had tried to correct for the swerve Valkyrie had made, but had fail to account for her slowing.
CRUMP….
A waterfall fell on the battlebridge, and across the port side. But, what froze Commodore Rafin's heart was the feeling in the soles of his feet, like a massive sledgehammer had struck his ship, somewhere…..
The N.R.N. Merlin's gunnery had continued to be horrible. The stern gun crews, in the rushed confusion to fire as fast as possible after turning to cross the tee, had mistakenly loaded a high explosive shell. Weighing slightly less that the armor piercing shell, it had carried hundreds of meters further than planned, right past the Merlin's target, the line of battle ship Battle Axe.
The 36 cw shell slammed through the main deck of the N.P.S. Amazon on the starboard side, between the C and D main gun turrets of the battlecruiser. It ripped through the crew spaces and exploded before even making it to the main armored deck over the engine room. The massive blast of the HE round, with more that four times the explosives of an AP shell, crumbled steel bulkheads and bowed up the deck above. Fires raged through the two decks on the rear port side of the Amazon.
But the main guns kept firing.
08:46, 324 km East North East of Great Mouth, High Isle, Natrib Major. Task Force 3, N.R.N. Goliath, course 16 grads (90°), speed 36 kph
Goliath fired with three of her remaining four twin gun main turrets. Due to her asymmetrical front turret layout, she
could only fire her B turret to a very small amount starboard of center, and the Namreggian fleet was steaming away on her starboard side.
Vice Admiral Nash stood on the bridge with his ears erect in pride. The Namreggian line of battle ship which had pulled out of line was definitely going slower. Commander Turner had just reported that the range finders reported her speed as 35 kph and slowing.
"She won't be getting away from us!" he gloated aloud.
He put his binoculars up to his face, looking thru the small window of thick armored glass on the starboard side of the battle bridge. He could see his destroyer squadrons making their attack run. Well, not see the ships, but the smoke and forest of water spouts that marked their position. The Namreggians were putting up a wall of fire. It was as he expected and he would be happy, surprised in fact, if half of the hydrolance destroyers making the attack survived the attempt.
But, if they could cripple another of the Namreggian line of battle…..
Yes, it was worth the cost, Nash thought. He was thinking of the ships, like pieces in a game, trading a couple of expendable small units to capture one of the opponent's bigger pieces. Even captains of smaller ships, Beta Seniors, were below his social notice, which never extended beyond the Alpha Caste.
The range between the N.P.S. Battleaxe and the N.R.N. Goliath had already increased from 11 to 13 kilometers. Less than a minute before, the volley of three shells had left the barrels of the stern turret of the Battleaxe. Due to an extra 25 grams of powder in one of the bags of propellant in the port gun, it's shell flew an extra 50 meters and splashed harmlessly into the ocean. The shells from the center and starboard guns flew in almost identical arcs, which ended with the Goliath steaming directly underneath the endpoint of the arc.
The two shells both slammed into the deck on the port side of the Goliath, one shell wrecking a 3.5 cw anti-aircraft mount on it's way through. Both passed through officers staterooms and then on the deck below, through shops and machinery rooms. The 28 cw werewolf round from the center gun penetrated the main armor belt and enter the port-stern boiler room in the corner and continued though the bilges below, exploding just as it struck the bottom of the ship, right at the bulkhead between the port and starboard sides of the stern boiler rooms. Both boiler rooms begin flooding, but not so fast as to prevent most of the black watch from escaping upwards.
The other werewolf round from the starboard gun had hit 20 meters sternwards on the Goliath, and as it came through the main armored deck, it entered the port turbine room. The round ripped open the steel casing of the steam turbine and continued down, exploding in the ships bilges. Fragments of tungsten put over a dozen fist sized holes in the bottom of the ship.
Steam from the turbine at 425º C instantly filled the engine room, scalding to death the entire engine room crew. The rotor of the turbine, still spinning at 1600 rpm, ripped at it's bearings due to the unbalance caused by scores of blades shattered by the passing shell. A microscopic crack in the steel of the rotor's shaft, which would have caused it to fail after another few years of use, grew with each turn of the shaft due to the incredible stain the metal was under. A fraction of a second later the still turning shaft cracked in two. The forward end ripped downwards and tumbled into the bilges, ripping a three meter long, 10 cm wide gash in the bottom of the ship. The rear end of the shattered turbine shaft ripped up and to the center, and ripped a similar gash, 10 meters long, in the bulkhead separating the port from the center engine rooms. Most of the crew in the center engine room were able to get out, slamming the watertight doors behind them.
The Goliath slowed and swerved to port due to the off center thrust of the starboard screw still at full speed. She begun to settle lower in the water and list to port. Soon, the flooding put out the fires in the center boiler room's furnaces, and the turbine driving the center propeller shaft stopped before water coming through the 10 meter gash in the bulkhead could flood it. The ship slowed even more, with only one of the three screws still turning. And the Goliath settled deeper still into the cold waters of the Natrib Sea.
08:46, 323 km East North East of Great Mouth, High Isle, Natrib Major. Task
Force 3, 14th Destroyer Squadron, N.R.N. DD-874, course 13 grads (73°), speed 58 kph
Chief Bosun Gott crouched near the rack of four hydrolances as his crew swung the launcher to face over the port side of the ship. The four long, triangular hydrolances sat ready in their cradles. Their gasoline and
compressed air tanks had been checked and were full. The gasoline engines which powered them were idling, and the
gyroscopes which would guide them were spinning, also driven by compressed air from the hydrolances' air tanks. The
quick disconnect hoses from the compressors were still attached, keeping the hydrolances air tank full until they were fired.
The hoses would only be removed at the last second, just before the great pistons above each weapon launched it over the side and towards the
enemy.
Gott's fur was wet from the splash of a near miss. He kept one hand on a nearby handrail as the ship swung to port. The captain had been chasing the splashes of the incoming shells, trying to ruin the aim of the enemy ships, less than 6 kilometers away. Just minutes ago, they had almost collided with another ship of the squadron, as one of the two ships, Gott had no idea which, has been off in it's timing of the squadrons maneuvers.
In peacetime, on sunny afternoons, the squadron had practiced hydrolance attacks. No dodging then, straight in they had went. For the manual said that the destroyer squadrons would make hydrolance attacks on crippled enemy ships, after the big guns of the line of battle had battered the enemy line of battle and driven off the escorts.
The casteless Namreggian's escorts had certainly not been driven off. After a destroyer in the other attacking squadron had been blasted apart by a hit from the 20 cw guns of an enemy heavy cruiser, the Commodore of his squadron had ordered all of his captains to begin evasive maneuvers.
Chief Bosun Gott wondered what witless Alpha Caste had ordered his squadron to attack before the enemy had been sufficiently "softened up". With only a single rack of four hydrolances on each destroyer, his squadron could only hope to cripple the enemy line of battle ships, which loomed two kilometers behind the enemy escorts. He had been ordered to aim their hydrolances at the last ship in the Namreggian line of battle. Gott assumed that each of the ships in his squadron had been assigned a different target.
His ship heeled over again, now turning to starboard. Just ahead of them, he saw the flagship of his squadron belch smoke as a shell struck her in the forward turrets. Fire and smoke raced back as the ship continued on.
With their constant maneuvering, the return fire from Natribbish destroyers was unlikely to hit anything, but it made the crew feel better to hear their guns firing and at least hope that they were harming the enemy.
Gott flexed his fingers in anxiety as another enemy shell screamed overhead.
08:49 380 km North-North West of Helms Shoals, Namreg, N.P.S.
Valkyrie, Namreggian Line of Battle, course 28 grads (158°), Speed 29 kph
Midshipman Fowler stood in the Navigation bridge, watching as the N.P.S. Great Axe pulled away ahead of them. They were
again at the rear of the line of battle, with the rest of the fleet pulling ahead by a kilometer every four minutes.
His joints ached with the fear he felt, knowing that as soon as the rest of the Namreggian fleet had retreated beyond range of the Natribish line of
battle's big guns, they would all turn on him. And they could now outrun him.
But the Valkyrie would not go down without a fight. The starboard 16 cw secondary's had joined in the fire on the enemy destroyers, added a staccato counterpoint to the crash of the stern turret main guns, which despite the smoke from fires filling them, continued to engage their target, the last ship in the enemy line of battle.
Fountains of water crashed onto Valkyrie's decks as the enemy again struck the sea, this time directly in front of her.
Only one of the next volley of 40 cw shells from the stricken Goliath crashed into the bows of the Valkyrie. The huge shell ripped through the main deck, and through the storage room full of lines for mooring the ship on the deck below, it then entered the empty space that formed the very bow of the ship. It exploded when it was almost to the bottom of the ship, ripping a huge hole in the front of the ship. The seawater, driven into the ship by the speed of her motion, crushed bulkheads and flooded several compartments in the bows of the ship. The ruin of her bows increased the friction of the water passing her hull, slowing the massive ship still further.
