World of Warships is doing a Halloween themed ship stories contest. I was interested so I tried to come up with something for it.
The World of Warships
Something was wrong. Commander Albert Wentzel could feel it in his gut. He and his crew were ordered to set sail for Two Brothers, a battlefield where a million men had laid down their lives. While the fleet was being divided, Wentzel tried to place a call to the Fleet Admiral.
When he was first brought to the World of Warships, Wentzel had seen vast seas of opportunity, of glory, of honor, and endless battle. He had amassed a crew of fearless, loyal sailors. He had bested battleships, blown up cruisers, scorched destroyers black, and sent carriers limping away with nary a plane left on their scarred decks. He had seen everything, and he had destroyed everything.
The battleship commander had also been bested himself. Wentzel remembered what it felt like, to be surrounded, overwhelmed by incoming fire, and killed. He and his crew knew death, in all of its gruesome forms. In this world, death was inevitable. The only question was victory. Wentzel and his men always looked ahead, to victory and victory alone.
Through countless battles, the commander rose up the ranks until he was able to take command of the most powerful German battleship, the Großer Kurfürst. He had captained the Bayern and the Gneisenau. He had indulged in the legend of the Bismarck. He had experienced the full might of the Friedrich der Große. Wentzel earned his glorious command, and his crew had served with distinction from the outset.
Now Commander Albert Wentzel was here, standing on the bridge of … the Scharnhorst. The Scharnhorst was a good ship, fast and exceptionally well protected. Even so, just being here troubled him greatly. He was one of the most well known and respected men in this world. He should be on the bridge of the Kurfürst. In the beginning, he dared not ask the Fleet Admiral about the decision to reassign him. Now he was frustrated enough to try.
“Admiral, tell me why. What is the purpose of our reassignment to the Scharnhorst?”
“Almost to 21 points. Just a little more,” said a voice on the far end of the line.
“Admiral?”
“Yeah, well I’m sick of that broken sub, so we’re playing lower tiers.”
Useless, Wentzel thought. The Fleet Admiral always seemed to be talking right past him, speaking in riddles, telling jokes, and answering questions no one asked. Wentzel stayed on the line regardless. There was still a little time, and he needed answers.
When the fleets arrived at Two Brothers, Commander Wentzel prepared for a tactic many thought suicidal. He planned a delayed, but otherwise direct assault on the enemy fleet between the two islands comprising Two Brothers. The tactic had failed as many times as it had won him and his fleet the battle. Victory to the bold and the cunning; death to the timid and the stupid.
Albert would have to hang up and see to the battle soon, so he made one last attempt to get an answer out of the Fleet Admiral. When he put the phone to his ear, what he heard sent chills down his spine.
“You brought the wrong ship!”
“What?” Albert swallowed hard. Was there some kind of miscommunication between them? Knowing the Admiral, almost certainly.
“Haarlem’s a tier 8! Oh we @#%!&* up. Fail div.”
What was a fail div? “Admiral, please. Why were we reassigned?” Wentzel hoped that whatever he meant by wrong ship, it would somehow lead to him commanding the Kurfürst again.
There was a long pause, but eventually, the Fleet Admiral gave him an answer.
He would never forget those dreaded words.
“There it is. Balao.”
Wentzel slammed the phone down and stormed out of the bridge.
Balao. That cursed submarine. That bane of banes. Wentzel had sunken more than his fair share of submarines in recent months, but in turn, his beloved Großer Kurfürst had also been devastated time and time again. Wentzel remembered each time the credit for his destruction went to the Balao. He knew all too well why the Fleet Admiral wouldn’t let him be bested a fourth time. That submarine had cost him the command of the ship he loved so dearly.
Even knowing the Balao was the source of all his troubles, there was little he could do about it. There was another battle in front of him, and the Fleet Admiral was rambling about the Haarlem and something called a fail div. Just once would the man say something coherent?
Commander Wentzel returned to the bridge of the Scharnhorst and steeled himself for the battle ahead.
The Scharnhorst waited until well into the battle before beginning her push through the center of the two islands, but Wentzel received numerous reports in the meantime. Almost none of the news was good. Ships much more powerful than his were appearing on the far side of the island. Some of them were legendary, like the Yamato. Wentzel feared he might not accomplish nearly as much as he set out to do. There was something unusual about the makeup of the two opposing sides. His plan was set, however. They were going in no matter what.
“Head straight through while they’re distracted on the right flank,” Wentzel ordered, “Once we’re on the far side, we’ll sink the King George, and then capture their-”
“We’ve been pinged by a submarine, sir!”
“Torpedoes, just off the bow!”
They had barely made it into position when everything fell apart. The Scharnhorst lacked hydro-acoustic search equipment, and by the time anyone was able to spot the torpedoes, the helmsman could do nothing. Everyone braced for impact, but Wentzel stole a glance at the deadly wakes. Was he seeing things, or were there six of them?
“No.”
“There it is. Balao.” The Fleet Admiral’s words suddenly sounded like a warning.
“What is the Balao doing here?!” Wentzel cried out.
“We’ve been pinged again!”
“… oh my God ….”
This was a fun little thing to write on the side. I’m not sure if fail divs are spooky per se, or even facing off against the Balao, but there’s a weird ‘parallel worlds’ thing going on that Wentzel hasn’t caught onto, and that makes things just a little bit unsettling. I actually wouldn’t mind making an actual series out of this since the game has plenty of characters to either use as is or take inspiration from.
We’ll see. I just went through the trouble of writing it so I figured it should be on the blog as well.
I won’t have enough time to finish and polish up Fleeing Victory #5 tonight. So, so close. A couple more hours, maybe. It should be done by tomorrow.
It’s fine, but I just have to clinch my fist when an idea doesn’t quite come together in time. There’s also been some progress on Atoning Mirror (LGT), though not nearly as much. I might have gotten it done today if I wasn’t hopping back and forth between the two, but LGT is more important, so I do need to spend time on it everyday. Until November gets here, I’m just focusing on these two to make sure I meet those self-imposed deadlines.
Fleeing Victory #5 will be up sometime tomorrow.
It figures it would be a Tuesday, now that I think about it.
It’s a quiet Sunday, but I’ve been chipping away at both Fleeing Victory #5 (title pending) and Atoning Mirror. I’m starting to get my head around the direction the latter is going to take. FV#5 is looking similar to FV#1 so far, in terms of the pacing and information presented. I guess that’s inevitable when you’ve got to introduce a few new characters. I might be able to have FV#5 done tomorrow or Tuesday. We’ll see. Atoning Mirror is definitely going to take longer.
There are some other stories I really want to work on but they’ll have to wait until at least next month. I don’t want to get bogged down working on five different things at once and miss my deadline.
I do want to ramble about one of them a bit.
In the Zion setting there’s an event that involves saving the Earth. Several massive military organizations were created to prepare for it. Without getting into spoilers, there were two important groups that originate here. The one I’ve been itching to hash out first wouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me.
Autonomous warships, an entire fleet of ships with their own minds and goals. I’ve always loved that concept, and it’s what I love about Arpeggio of Blue Steel in particular. There’s nothing quite as interesting as a weapon system with an identity on par with a human. This genre is nothing new, but Arpeggio did it in a way that doesn’t just shove the hulking ships aside when they aren’t needed, that or compress them into fashionable backpacks. If a ship isn’t around anymore, it’s because it was either blown up or dissolved for materials.
Now imagine this in space.
The Reapers from the Mass Effect series and the Basestars from the Battlestar Galactica series come to mind, which was something I liked about them both. I think sentient starships and their equivalents are at their best in a narrative when they’re ‘elite’ in threat terms: extremely powerful, but far from invincible. Mass Effect had more Lovecraftian inspirations, so they needed to go in the other direction. A story focused on them would probably have needed their power scaled back, though.
I’ve always wanted to try my hand with the sentient ship concept, but focusing specifically on the ships. What’s it like for a powerhouse fleet of sentient starships to try and exist in a universe that takes one look at all their weapons and either quakes in terror or gets ‘ideas’?
(Hmm, imagine a Godzilla movie that focused on Godzilla. Wild.)
I want to find out how it would go, and I want to find out in my own way. That’s all I can get into right now so I’ll call it there for the day. I’ll come back to this once things are further along. Likely some time next year.
Even though it was almost two days ahead of the deadline for FV #4, I still felt like I was cutting it pretty close there. There’s still two more of them due this month, but they’re going to be different from what I’ve done so far. Since ‘Intrepid 21’ is going to be busy driving around without much else going on, I’ve decided to switch perspective characters for a few issues. If you’re thinking the perspective character is going to be that Munican scout leader, you’re spot on. Get ready to see some of the Munican perspective on things, as well as find out what happened to the Cordoba during that enormous bombing run.
As the winds died down and the sands began to dissipate, Ricard could finally see the Munican colossus for what it was. The mechanical legs he had mistaken for large pillars in the storm, were covered in curved armor plates that perfectly matched the rocky beige of the Arenas Desert. The gigantic machine’s knees were covered by long plates that ran the length of the colossus’ thighs, and were set just forward of the shins, suggesting a digitigrade structure. Only a very small assembly of parts approximating a pair of feet were touching the ground. Somehow, they held the whole colossus upright. This Munican design had more in common with the draques than a Cordaean colossus. Its similarities to the draques did not end there.
Above the waist, Ricard could see the five lights casting a deep crimson onto the rest of the body. The bright one at the center pulsed angrily, and Ricard could only imagine what it’s purpose was, or what sort of technology was humming away behind all of that armor.
The machine’s arms were thin, but about as well protected as the rest of the body. The colossus’ head rested above and behind its large, slender torso, supported by a long and flexible neck. It was still partially obscured by the fading storm, but Ricard could see clearly enough to know he had seen many draconic heads just like it in the past. Its eyes and crown sensor gave off the same fierce red light he had come to know and loathe.
On the colossus’ lower back were a pair of exceptionally large pod-like structures. On a draque, that would be where the wings were located. Ricard figured the pods, despite their aerodynamic shape, probably contained huge stores of mana. Powering a colossus wasn’t easy, and keeping mana stored internally in such a compact design was something he very much doubted the Municans could pull off, even with such an intricate design.
Ricard took in every detail of the colossus he could. He knew he was almost certainly going to be spending the rest of the conflict as a prison of war, or worse, but his training never let up. When he spotted a new type of enemy, his eyes were fixed on it. A Cordaean colossus was purely prudenoid in its construction. It couldn’t afford any more nuance in its design than that. The Munican colossus on the other hand was like a monstrously upscaled draque standing upright. In hindsight, this was exactly what a Munican colossus should look like.
The draque scout picked up her radio. Ricard watched and listened as her mechanical mount kept him pinned there on the ground. She didn’t speak to her allies in Laytier like she had with him. Instead she was speaking Munican. He could remember bits and pieces of the language, but reading her body language helped to fill in some of the gaps. She was talking about the colossus, calling it ‘Cordoba,’ and suggesting it should retreat. That likely had everything to do with the sandstorm. The scout was apparently the leader of a ‘Jinete Team.’ Whether or not he found an opening to escape, that bit of information could be worth remembering.
When the scout was finished, she put the radio away and clinched her fists. Whoever was on the receiving end of that report hadn’t taken her suggestion. That meant Ricard’s presence here was the only thing keeping his allies from bombing the colossus into the dirt. Maybe there was a way to use that to his advantage.
“You’d better run,” Ricard warned, straining to talk with the draque pinning him down by his chest. He had been bleeding from prior attempts to pull himself up, but now red was spreading out from beneath each claw. “Once those planes are done surveying the damage, they’ll come for the colossus.”
Ricard didn’t know what the planes were doing over there, now. The device the Municans used to prop up the storm was gone, as were the mages operating it. They could swing back around and start attacking the colossus right now if they wanted. Ricard desperately hoped they weren’t just holding back on his account, but his exchange with Lieutenant Rog suggested that was exactly what was going on.
“Shut it,” the scout hissed, “The Cordaeans won’t launch an attack with you here.”
Ricard winced. So that was her plan. Either way it was time for another bluff. “Are you serious, lady? My people know I’m as good as dead. They’re not gonna wait.”
“Those planes over there seem to be waiting,” the scout leader noted, effortlessly countering his point.
“Not the guys I’m talking about,” Ricard shot back. He didn’t know what his allies were up to, which made it that much harder to guard his nerves, but he had to at least pretend the area was about to be saturated in fire. It was the only chance he had of throwing this woman off and finding an opening to escape. “Why do you think we’re here? To bait your artillery into wasting all of their ammunition?”
“You’re here for Cordoba, I imagine,” the scout answered honestly, “Cordaeans usually don’t beat their faces against a wall for no reason.”
“Exactly! So now that we’ve got a visual on that oversized lizard, what do you think’s going to happen next?”
“… I think we’re both going to be disappointed,” the scout sighed.
Boom.
Ricard had just enough time to glance in the direction of the faint gunshot when something struck the draque above him and dazed him. When his senses returned, Ricard’s ears were ringing and his sight was hazy. He could see the scout scampering back to her feet, and a short distance behind her, the draque she rode in on. It was barely alive, and bleeding smoke and embers from an armor piercing round. Ricard was so familiar with that kind of battle damage that he was able to instantly piece everything together. “Chaser’s coming,” he breathed, hurrying to his feet.
Ricard looked up at the colossus, being careful not to forget the giant in the chaos. Somehow, he had to get away from it, far enough that the army could take it out. He didn’t know why exactly, but he found himself calling back to the scout as he ran. “Run! Get out of there!”
“Lieutenant Rog to Sergeant Silva, are you clear of the colossus?”
Ricard didn’t expect to hear the Lieutenant’s voice again, not even inside his head, but it sounded like they were ready to finish the mission. “Not yet,” Ricard sent back, constantly checking over his shoulder as he ran toward the gunshot. Overhead he could hear the two planes coming back. It was almost time.
“We’ve got two birds running interference while the bombers get into position. Get out to at least 1000 meters. Intrepid 21 is inbound to pick you up.”
“Intrepid 21?” There were only Intrepids 1 through 20 as far as Ricard knew.
There they were. Ricard could see Chaser coming straight toward him at top speed. He turned back to see what the colossus Cordoba was doing, but just as he did, a burst of cannon fire from the planes strafed it. Some shots bounced off the armor at shallow angles while others just barely managed to embed themselves. It was more than enough to draw the machine’s attention, and thankfully, it looked like the scout had heard him and was on the move as well. She was heading in another direction, likely straight west. Having left his compass, Ricard could only guess that he was heading roughly southward. Chaser was coming from that same direction, making him confident in his bearings again.
When Chaser was close, it stopped to let Ricard aboard. Nicholas and Casey were inside, while Alice rode on a makeshift stretcher on the hull. She was gently held in place by Chaser’s mechanical arm. Ricard didn’t like this arrangement one bit. Her leg was in a splint, but surely they could have carried her inside. There was enough room for three people. They had at least thought to give her some earmuffs and what looked like a torn off piece of tarp to cover up with. Still, if they got into a proper fight … “Don’t think about it,” Ricard shook it off. He hopped onto the front of Chaser’s hull and knelt down beside Alice.
“We were in a hurry,” she said. Ricard couldn’t hide his disdain for this from anyone, much less Alice. “I tried but I couldn’t get inside with my leg like this. Riding on the outside was my idea, promise.”
“So was our new name, by the way,” Casey chimed in from Chaser’s commander hatch. “Intrepid 21! What do you think?”
“We’ll probably get split up again after this,” Ricard noted as he got into a riding position, “but for this one mission, it’ll do. Let’s go.”
Feeling the shallow cuts on his chest with his fingers reminded Ricard just how close he was to spending the rest of the conflict in a far away cell. All things considered, he was getting off light, with only a few minor injuries.
Chaser turned southeast and started moving just as the sun began to set. The turret turned backward to face the Cordoba, forcing Ricard to grab something else to keep himself stable. “Hey, don’t fire that again,” he pleaded. Alice may have had ear protection, but he certainly didn’t. “Just leave it to the planes.”
“Oh man, they’re comin’!”
“Who’s coming?” Ricard asked, though he could already hear the roars of engines coming from the east, “the bombers?”
“Yeah! Looks like sixteen of’em!”
Ricard groaned and moved closer to Alice. No matter how far away they were when the attack started, they wouldn’t be completely safe.
“Lieutenant, we’ve got Rick and we’re all clear,” Casey yelled at the top of his lungs, “bombs away! Blow that thing off the map!”
Ricard made no effort to look as the bombers began their attack, instead doing his best to get between Alice and Chaser’s turret. “Almost through this,” he said, partly to Alice and partly to himself.”
“We’ll make it,” Alice smiled. She immediately took his hand when the first bomb hit.
The attack on Cordoba could be seen and felt from over a kilometer away. Several more bombs went off in rapid succession. Ricard and Alice put their heads together to try and endure the violent tremors. All they could hear other than the explosions was Casey’s jubilant ravings.
“I don’t know what’s worse, the bombs or him yelling like a maniac,” Ricard muttered to Alice.
