Chapter 202: Damn It, Hit Again

Turret B was the only main gun turret on Vajra still operational. The forward A turret had its elevation mechanism wrecked by Revival, and the aft C turret fell completely silent in the earlier bombardment. Now, only these two 356mm Main Guns still represented Vajra's last capacity to fight back.

The problem was, they couldn't see the target.

"Observation tower! Give us a target bearing!" Yamada roared into the intercom.

The intercom carried only static noise. The main observation tower had been destroyed in the previous bombardment, and the backup observation tower's signal was also cut off.

"Damn it..." Yamada slammed his fist against the turret's inner wall. "The lookout port! Someone check the lookout port!"

Morishita crawled to the lookout port and peered out through the thick bulletproof glass. The scene outside made him suck in a sharp breath.

The rear half of Vajra's hull was burning. Thick smoke obscured most of the view, but he could see the aft mast had already collapsed onto the rear deck. Farther away, Wise Comparison drifted slowly across the sea like a dying whale, its hull listing more than twenty degrees, sailors running everywhere on deck fleeing for their lives.

And Hazelnut Name... Hazelnut Name was almost invisible now, just a massive oil slick swirling on the sea surface, and floating wreckage.

"Morishita! What do you see?" Yamada shouted.

"I... I see..." Morishita's voice was trembling. "I see Wise Comparison is about to go down... Hazelnut Name might have already sunk... Mist Island... Mist Island is gone..."

A deathly silence filled the turret. Six gun crew members, plus the ammunition handlers, fourteen people in all, stopped what they were doing.

"Gone... what does that mean?" an ammunition handler asked quietly.

"It means sunk! Sunk to the fucking bottom of the sea!" Yamada kicked the gun mount, then clutched his foot, grimacing in pain. But he quickly straightened up, a mad fire burning in his eyes. "So we're going to take revenge! We're going to blast those invisible bastards out! Keep rotating the turret! Toward the direction the Shells came from!"

"But Gunner, we don't know the exact bearing..."

"Then aim southeast! You can at least manage a general direction, right?"

The gun crew members looked at each other, then silently returned to their posts. Morishita continued turning the handwheel of the traverse mechanism, and another loader began clearing the gun bore. Yamada crawled to the fire control console—though most of the instruments had failed, the most basic mechanical gunsight was still usable.

He squinted through the gunsight toward the southeastern horizon. There was nothing there, only a expanse of blue seawater and sky.

"Distance... twenty thousand... no, twenty-five thousand..." Yamada muttered to himself, adjusting the dial. "Elevation... 30 degrees... Load armor-piercing shells!"

"Loading complete!"

"Stand by—"

Yamada's hand rested on the firing button. He knew that at this Distance, firing with a mechanical gunsight, the probability of a hit was almost zero. But he had to do something. He couldn't just sit here waiting to die.

"Fire!"

The two 356mm Main Guns roared. The turret shook violently, smoke filling the air. Through the lookout port, Yamada saw the Shell trails streaking outward, extending all the way to the edge of his field of vision.

Thirty seconds later, nothing happened. No hit splashes, no explosion sounds, nothing at all. The Shells vanished into the distant horizon like stones sinking into the sea.

"Again!" Yamada roared. "Load! Keep firing! Fire until we run out of Shells!"

"Gunner..." Morishita suddenly said, "Listen."

Yamada paused and listened. Beyond the turret's vibrations and mechanical noise, he heard a new sound—like countless bees humming in the distance, growing closer, growing louder.

That was the sound of Shells tearing through the air. Dozens of 380mm Shells were flying in from twenty-five thousand yards away, falling toward Vajra.

"Brace for impact!" Yamada only had time to shout this one phrase.

Then, hell descended.

Vajra's engine room, five meters below the waterline.

Chief Engineer Onodera Masao lay prone across a already warped steam pipe, using the last of his strength to tighten a leaking valve. His right leg was pierced by a broken steel pipe, pinned to the deck, but he had no time to deal with it.

"What's the pressure on Boiler Three?" he asked hoarsely.

"Pressure is dropping... water's gotten into the firebox..." the stoker's voice carried a sob. "Chief Engineer, we can't hold on..."

"Hold on even if you can't!" Onodera roared. "If the engines stop, this ship really becomes a floating coffin!"

He looked up and surveyed this engine room that had once made him proud. Vajra had four steam turbines with a total output of 136,000 horsepower, capable of driving this 30,000-ton giant warship at 30 knots. But now, Turbine One had been completely destroyed, Turbine Two was barely running, and Turbines Three and Four were putting out less than half their normal power.

Worse still, the hull was leaking in multiple places. Damage control had already reported at least five compartments fully flooded, and the breaches were too large to plug. Vajra was taking on water at a rate of two hundred tons per minute, and the list had already exceeded eight degrees.

"Chief Engineer..." a young technical officer crawled over, his face covered in black ash. "Orders from above, requiring us to maintain at least 15 knots and try to disengage from the battle..."

Onodera gave a bitter laugh. "15 knots? We can barely manage 10 knots right now. Tell them up top—either accept this speed, or we all sink together."

The technical officer hesitated. "But... the Commander said..."

"I don't care what the Commander said!" Onodera cut him off. "I'm a Chief Engineer. I only know the limits of machines. This ship's limits have been reached. Every additional nautical mile we run now is overdrawing the last bit of life it has."

He shifted his body with difficulty, trying to check the instrument panel. But just then, the entire ship shook violently.

Not the kind of vibration from the Main Guns firing—that kind was rhythmic, controllable. This vibration was chaotic, violent, as if a giant hand had grabbed Vajra from beneath the sea and was shaking it wildly.

"Hit again..." an old stoker muttered, his eyes full of despair.

Onodera gripped the railing tightly, feeling every explosion transmitted through the deck beneath his feet. He could distinguish them: the first shell hit the rear, the second hit amidships, the third...

"Boom—!!!"

This explosion was extremely close—so close that Onodera felt his eardrums were about to burst. The lights in the engine room went out all at once, and only after a few seconds did the emergency lights flicker on with a dim yellow glow.

"Where was it hit?" he roared.

"From the sound... it seems near Turret D..." the technical officer's voice trembled. "Below Turret D is... is Boiler Room Four..."

Onodera's heart sank. Boiler Room Four—there were eighty stokers and mechanics in there, along with four high-pressure boilers. If that took a direct hit...

The intercom suddenly crackled. A blurred, broken voice came through: "Four... Compartment Four... completely destroyed... boiler explosion... everyone... ah—!!!"

A short, sharp scream came through the intercom, and then there was only static noise.