Si Vis Pacem
The fleet's first engagement at the 23rd parallel.
A stain here, a stain there. Despite there being none, Yorros’ despicable elven heritage prompted him to see stains, dirt, filth, all over his uniform. It was the same heritage - or perhaps his upbringing - that had cursed him to be terrified of germs and bacteria. Gods know he washed his hands in a day more than a normal person does in a week. And now, with the stakes at hand, he couldn’t help but despise this obsession immeasurably more. With a shiver of disgust, he donned the black coat adorned with golden trims and pressed the crusher cap on his silver hair.
The RNS Ellorlon, outside of his cabin, sailed gracefully forth. Her hull was a dull grey, sharp in the front and angled downward, like a knife cutting up the waves. The kingdom’s flag flapped in the wind on the top mast, and the sun shone bright on the wooden deck. Atop it, sailors cleaned, followed orders, and those lucky enough did not.
“Sunscreen.” An elf’s dainty voice cut through the song of the waves.
“Pale boy. What you need it for, Sylsi?” In response, an orc dropped his arm to the side of the rickety wooden and canvas bed and scooped a glass vial.
“Not everyone’s got skin as thick as a lizard, Greg.”
His name was not Greg. His name was Gregarius Kashan II, Arm of Tempus. An unfortunate four-letter combo at the beginning and an obnoxiously long name had caused Greg to surface, and no sigh was disappointed enough to shoot it down.
“Battle-hardened, you twink. You got soft hands.”
“The ladies like soft hands, not whatever you’ve got going on.” A swift kick to the leg of the bed caused the flimsy construction to fail, and the elf yelped without much masculinity, finding himself lower on the ground but at least still on the cot.
“Dick,” he grumbled, taking the sunscreen vial and smearing it on his hairless chest. Gregarius didn’t bother, partly because of his admittedly thick skin and coloration, but mostly for his lack of care for such frivolous things as skin cancer.
The crusher cap was tight. Now it was loose. Now it felt like it was leaning. Every adjustment felt more and more awkward here on the bridge, even if no crewman was bothering to look at him. Yorros, nevertheless, worried. It was his duty, after all, to worry. Yorros, Lieutenant Commander, Executive Officer of the Royal Navy Heavy Cruiser Ellorlon. Just thinking about all those responsibilities compounding together made him sick. His name was, somehow, the worst of the three.
His gaze unfocused, and he was pulled back into his memories by a part of his mind that despised him. Unclear and dream-like, the elf’s past flowed through him. Mother, so disappointed in his choice to pursue a career with the round ears. Father, hopeful that he had at least chosen officers’ school and not the path of a lowly seaman. “What a dreadful sight,” he’d say, describing an example of a man that Yorros saw in the ensigns on the bridge, and in the sailors on the deck. “Grimy and slimy and gross. With those horrible hats!” Garrison caps and crusher caps. Like the one on his head, which suddenly felt so tight.
A handful of salutes flew his way as he walked, and the timely “Officer on deck!” belched out of the boatswain’s bearded face as his polished boot touched the bridge’s floor. The diverse cast serving there turned and saluted, aside from the helmsman. Another elf, a couple of humans, a half-orc, a terribly out of place satyr - the Navy did not discriminate, but that also made for a sometimes hilarious crew composition.
“Sir. Morning watch is well,” the Quartermaster, aforementioned satyr, stepped forward and offered Yorros the log, titled 12/06/491 Watch 0400-0800. “Helm made a correction at 0230 to avoid a group of merfolk skinning a whale. No other anomalies but the storm, sir.”
Out of the port windows, the sky was clear if not for some white streaks, but starboard was a different story. A vortex of black and grey spun angrily at the horizon. Lightning cracked through the thick clouds periodically. “Moving north. At present course, we’ll meet it in… two hours, yes.” Yorros mumbled a thanks and nodded, as sailors rotated out of their watch in a perfectly ordinated, rehearsed dance. Quiet mumbled announcements sounded, “I have the helm,” and “You have the helm” and similar songs to follow the choreography.
“Morning. Coffee?” One of the three specialists sat in the small room just aft of the bridge, and placed a steaming ceramic pot on the table.
Divination Officer Ingram, a lithe tiefling man who looked like he might fit better as a pole than a sailor, nodded and watched the brown substance pour into his cup. “How did you sleep?” the woman wielding the pot asked. It was a rhetorical question, really. Divination wizards of their caliber did not sleep, per se. Their minds drifted off into the future, into alternate realities and distant possibilities. Ingram shrugged.
“Like a baby,” Kragen, a hefty kobold that seemed more a small dragonborn than anything, snickered, a dumb sound that was somewhere between a frog’s ribbit and a wheezing dog. Of the trio, he was the optimistic one.
“You are, are you not?” The last was Aethel, an aasimar woman with angelic porcelain skin who immediately cocked an eyebrow at the lizard, and poured him some coffee as well. “I woke up an hour earlier than usual myself. Not sure exactly why.” It wasn’t common practice to share the aforementioned dreams. Those who did usually became paranoid wrecks.
Ingram’s hands clasped the cup, and after a quick prayer came the ritual sipping and sighing in unison. “Anything on the schedule today?”
Aethel’s tongue clicked. “Nope.”
“Not even like… training?”
“Nope.”
Desperation grew on the man’s purple-red face. “Live fire exercise. Coordination training. Fleet drill.”
“No, no, and no.”
Kragen’s toothy smile grew. They had known each other since the Ellorlon had had her crew replaced. It had been months now, and Ingram was the only one eager for action. They seemed almost like a stand-up trio. Aethel, the mom of the group, Ingram, the yappy little child, and Kragen, the cool uncle. A non-biased view, certainly.
“Maybe I’ll fish. I think we’re near the 23rd parallel. That’s where the good fish are, where they migrate up north.” The other two looked down at the kobold. Their eyes spelled out confusion. “No, I have no fucking idea if fish migrate.” Another collective sigh.
Sylsi reached back with a hand flapping in the air. “Ten millimeter. Ten- Greg? Greg!” and finally the wrench landed in his open palm, followed by a giggle. Gregarius sat behind the elf who had stuffed himself in the loading crane for the ship’s main gun, a modest 8-inch single-barreled turret poking up out of the midsection of the ship like a sore thumb. A late addition to improve the Province-class cruisers’ firepower.
“I feel like it’s the chain,” blurted Greg, watching past his gunnery mate’s silhouette into the vertical tube that loaded shells up to the gun. “It’s always the chain–” a groan and the famous sound of a head smacking into metal echo within.
“Shut up, dude. Shut up. It’s not the chain. It’s not. It’s the platform that gives. The platform has shitty bolts and they give under stress. God.” Sylsi pulled himself out of the loading elevator and stared at Greg with an oiled face. “Always with the chain. Maybe if you didn’t smash the fucking shells in, it wouldn’t break. Dickhead.”
All that Greg could muster was a whispered “Damn, sensitive.”
Breathe in, breathe out. Moisten lips. Blink. Blink again. Poor Yorros had meditated for, at best, a couple hours. He was supposed to perform the typical elven trance, levitate a couple inches off the ground, roll his eyes back and live through happy memories, but that was recently impossible. Despite his perfect pale skin, he bore two ugly purple eyebags.
He hoped she wouldn’t notice, so when the clicking of familiar heels came from behind him, he announced “Captain on deck” with some fear in his soul. Out from the small corridor aft of the bridge, a blue-colored woman came through, whose skin was at once shiny and deep like the ocean. After all, she was a water genasi, a humanoid made of the sea’s will. Who better than her to lead a warship.
Captain Delta Radlinka’s peaked cap, black coat and pants were of a striking perfection, as if ironed minutes before. Maybe it was the outfit and her form, perfect and almost featureless, or maybe her years in service to the king, that gave her such a regal appearance. Yorros couldn’t figure out which. “Yorros,” she spoke, voice monotone. “Report.”
“Ah- morning, ma’am. No anomalies, helmsman made a correction at 0230 to avoid some merfolk. The storm is moving north, at present course we’ll meet it in an hour or so.”
“Good. I have the conn,” she announced, and Yorros replied with “Captain has the conn.” Another choreographed back-and-forth, and the captain moved between stations, eventually reaching the starboard lookout. The enlisted at the post looked over their shoulder, nodded at the storm, and Radlinka’s eyes narrowed.
A sharp inhale stopped the conversation in the Diviner Operations Room. Ingram’s eyes widened, fixed on a point in space behind Aethel’s head. Kragen and her watched, waited. They knew the telltale signs of a vision, and the aasimar’s voice soon rang in the bridge via the rudimentary radio.
“Divin to Conn, we have a vision. Ships in the storm, unknown number. Storm appears unnatural.”
Radlinka’s hands clenched, and she replied over the 50MC: “Conn to Divin, copy. Confirm if possible.” She sought the confirmation of at least another diviner. One vision was sporadic, sometimes wrong, but two or three could not be ignored. Minutes passed, and the radio rang again. “Confirmed. Two out of three. Number unknown but possibly in the tens.”
The genasi’s shoulders tightened, if that was even possible with her form. The storm crept closer, and the bridge sat in cold silence. Already, the sun was beginning to whiten and be obscured by the outer edges of the veritable typhoon that was approaching. The most difficult decision of her career was dawning on her. The Ellorlon and her squadron had fought a couple of pirates during their patrol, but tens of ships sailing in such a storm could only mean enemy contact. Serious enemy contact. As the first droplets of the storm stained the deck, Radlinka’s jaw tightened, and she made the call. Alarms blared throughout the Ellorlon:
“General quarters, general quarters. All hands man your battlestations. The flow of traffic is up and forward on the starboard side, down and aft on the port side. Set material condition to Zebra. DivOps reports possible enemy contact incoming, two-thirds confirmed. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
Right away, plates dropped and chairs fell as sailors bolted out of mess halls and quarters. Gloves and vests and helmets came on, watertight hatches closed and the Ellorlon’s secondary guns swung to starboard: smaller 5-inch and 6-inch casemate guns, together with high-caliber machine guns. In the heart of the ship, Sylsi and Gregarius took their place in the 8-incher gunner seats.
“Gunnery reports all mounts ready, no faults. Boilers ready, engines good,” Yorros relayed from the radio phone on the back wall of the bridge. Radlinka nodded and turned. “You have Combat, Yorros. Take over.” Sweat ran down the elf’s back as he confirmed the order and descended into the Combat Information Center of the ship.
The CIC was lit in red lighting and bustling with activity. Gunnery liaison officers communicated with the mounts above deck, the geographic plotting team rallied around an illuminated glass table, communications officers plugged braided cables into immense switchboards, and artificers operated a massive magically-induced radar screen that floated in the air towards the front of the room. Yorros took his place with the plotting team at the center, leaning onto the table’s edge. He reached up to the radio, “Combat to Conn, we’re set. Systems green.”
Ellorlon’s escorts, a couple of light cruisers and three destroyers, were quickly informed and similar alarms rang through them. Hundreds of sailors swiftly and expertly executed their duty and found their places. Damage control, corpsmen, ammo carriers and messengers, engineers deep in the bowels of the metal war machines, gunnery crews crammed into little metal cans on deck.
Eventually, the squadron entered the storm, and visibility immediately dropped. Silence dawned on the bridge if not for reports and course corrections. The incessant tapping of the rain and the crashing of the ship’s sharp bow against the harsh waves were the only sound that hung in the air. Deep down, Lieutenant Yorros’ foot tapped against the ground, and every now and then a stronger wave shook the room, flickering the red lights.
A squared pencil lowered onto the glass table, then stopped.
The starboard lookout squinted and raised his binoculars. In the mist and white froth of the waves, he could have sworn he saw some blazing red.
“Don’t stress the chain,” Sylsi mumbled in the speaking tube that ran down to the ammunition store for the 8-inch gun. Greg swore, and lost count of the shells he was numbering.
“So it is the chain after all.”
“Shut up. With you, it’s the chain. Usually it’s the platform.”
Long claw-like nails poked out of purpose-built sewn holes in Gregarius’ gloves, thick and resistant to fire. The aesthetics of the uniform were utterly ruined by the life vest and PPE, but it was better to be alive than fashionable in the Navy, and with general quarters sounded, the orc had rolled his sleeves up to avoid stewing in the heat of the gun compartment. As amazing as it was to load the big gun atop the ship, it did involve sitting in a cramped room full of explosives, with no idea of what was going on outside.
Adrenaline ran through his blood. This is not a drill repeated itself in his head much like everyone else’s. Hands shivered over the mechanism and a jolt of panic shot up his spine as a rough wave made the shells shudder.
“I can’t see anything. I can’t see anything,” Ingram uttered up in the Divination Ops room, formally named Magically Induced Intelligence and Arcane Warfare Department. Really, it was a room with a nice carpet and three chairs for divination wizards to sit in and ponder.
Kragen’s lizard snout scrunched in frustration. “The storm has to be arcane. It’s like- it’s like a cage that current can’t pass through. I can’t see either.”
Blinded, Aethel’s third eye shifted elsewhere. She surveyed the ship, flying through it and analyzing its structure. She saw different crews and different layouts for the other realities, superimposed over hers like several pictures overlaid on top of the other. The Ellorlon exploded in a few of those, but she ruled out her own reality.
Something caught her attention. A flare of red and yellow further starboard.
The lookout’s blood froze, but duty and panic drove him to act. He turned, stumbled into the bridge and shouted: “The Spinel is hit!”
Immediately, Captain Radlinka and the boatswain ran out onto the small balcony on the right side of the superstructure. She snatched the lookout’s binoculars and confirmed for herself the dreaded alert. Just off their starboard quarter, the destroyer Spinel burned and ground to a halt, her engines dead and an enormous crater where the midsection was. What was once a smooth, thin blade armed with deadly torpedoes and a frightening maneuverability and speed, a gorgeous example of Norelvan engineering, now floated like dead wood. All three sailors looked off into the horizon, trying to spot the enemy.
It was then that behind the Spinel’s mangled corpse, a tall jet grey vessel skulked out, guns bearing on the Ellorlon, using the smoke and fire as cover to spring a surprise against the heavy cruiser. In a split second, its cannons fired, flashing the yellow of their muzzle into the darkened sky. The shells sailed forward, the almost point blank distance rendering any evasive maneuver useless, and met their target. They boomed against the cerulean shield draped over the cruiser, and in turn it released an ear-piercing whine, cracking like glass, pieces of the arcane aura surrounding the vessel falling into the sea. The Royal Navy’s plan of outfitting ships with a one-time use emergency shield had finally been tested much to the shock and anger of the enemy ship’s captain.
The crew shuddered, some fell, but Radlinka’s eyes laid unflinching on the black beast that had sunk the Spinel. Despite being a water-based creature, her heart burned with wrath. She ran back inside and did her duty, shouting orders.
“Helm, all ahead flank, hard right rudder.”
“Hard right rudder all ahead flank, ma’am” the helmsman responded.
“All mounts local control, stand by broadside to port, fire as they bear.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She turned to an arcane piece of technology, a long-range communicator that consisted of a sending stone on several settings. She switched to the squadron-wide channel. “This is Ellorlon, we have contact bearing 1-3-5, we’re attacking, watch your field.”
The cruiser creaked and tilted dangerously to the left. Radlinka and the bridge could see it clearly now, a ship comparable to theirs, bearing the red cross over black background that only one nation in the world proudly displayed: the Empire. “Meet her. Meet her,” she ordered, the wheel flying to the left to correct the maneuver. Meanwhile, the gunnery crews trusted their captain and turned to port.
Yorros held on and stared daggers into the radar technicians who argued and calibrated their machine. In their defense, nothing else seemed to really be working. Neither did Ingram, Aethel and Kragen, blinded by a typhoon wreathed in magical aura.
The cruiser’s bow accelerated straight towards the enemy ship, and the helmsman watched, hands trembling on the wheel, but Radlinka knew her ship, and knew the sea. It zipped just past the enemy’s stern, and as soon as the superstructure caught and ripped the flag flying off their back, she executed her plan.
“Hard left rudder, get us to bear 6-8. Ahead half. Open fire with secondaries.”
Her crew worked as they had been trained. The engine technicians, crammed in a hot, oily space, sang with glee (typical dwarves) and fulfilled her orders, slowing the Ellorlon down. Standing in the main gun compartment, Sylsi tapped his foot and watched the enemy fill his scope accompanied by the orchestra of smaller guns and machine guns suppressing the foreign seamen on their deck. But he waited, and waited.
Delta Radlinka had been an officer for a few months now, assigned to the aging Ellorlon rather than the shiny new BB-1 Noret. She had always wished to sail the seas, and it was on a murky day of autumn, sitting at the port in the city of Ellorlon, watching a destroyer roll out, horn blaring, that she whispered a “fuck it” and enlisted. Sylsi and Gregarius were childhood friends and rumored lovers, two lower class nobodies that signed up as a joke and graduated as the punchline. Yorros joined to defy his nation’s wishes, and to shatter his mother’s. The engineering department was a group of communist dwarves, the radar technicians were a bunch of ADHD-ridden artificers and sorcerers. Nobody on this ship had seen real combat, real stakes, real death if not the polished, expected death of old relatives. But as the Spinel’s beautiful shape tilted and dove, as sailors screamed and banged on watertight doors, as the water ran red with blood, Helm’s divine fury filled the Ellorlon’s pipes, tubes, barrels, arteries and veins. Radlinka’s voice growled: “Fire.”
The heavy cruiser’s side lit and spewed flame upon the enemy while their guns still struggled to face them. Shell after shell tore through the metal plating and deck, four and five inch guns chewing at the superstructure and exposed machinery while the mighty eight inch main gun howled its vengeance against the midsection, an alligator biting into its prey’s chest to get to the heart.
It was either by luck or godly intervention that the second volley of the primary struck gold: an ammunition store just under the forward turret. What followed was a blinding flash and a shockwave that shattered windows and threw half the crew on the floor. Splintered, red-hot chunks of the enemy rained onto the cruiser and against her sides, but to their port now rested a ball of smoke and the rudimentary shape of a boat lazily drifting forward. A double-barreled turret landed with a heavy plonk in the water next to the bridge.
The crew cheered, Sylsi’s eyes watered, Yorros’ mouth hung open, but their celebration was cut short by a signal flare, and the RNS Perite’s stern burning in the storm. “Left full rudder-” her instructions were cut short by the XO’s voice: “Combat conn, radar is up. We have a pip at bearing 2-9-2 range 4 miles and one 3-3-8 range 6.”
With the radar so returned the communications, and Radlinka realized that her previous message had been cast to the void just as voices filled the room from the arcane device.
“Ballater to Ellorlon, we have contact bearing 3-0-2, we’re attacking with Keld.”
“Keld to Ballater, we’re rolling to your port quarter, watch your fire.”
“Agate to Ellorlon, do you copy? Do you copy?”
“Perite to Agate, we have contact on our port bow, we’re defending. Move in to engage!”
Radlinka swiftly picked up the transmitter. She thought for a moment, calculated the possibilities, envisioned the enemy’s pincer maneuver. She couldn’t help but see the Spinel fading into the distance and imagine the horrors within. “Ellorlon to squadron, we have a confirmed kill, we’re moving to engage. Set a course 0-2-2 and transmit SOS continuously. We cannot sustain combat. Fighting retreat. Fighting retreat.”
The transmitter slammed down and confirmations came back to the receiver. “All ahead full, set us bearing 0-2-2. Messenger.” A young enlisted pulled a paper notebook out of his pockets. “Send a message to Fleet Command. Border Enforcement Squadron Tiger has made contact with imperial forces. Suffered loss of destroyer Spinel. Destroyer Perite damaged. Requesting immediate support. Beware of arcane effects. Send.” The man ran to the comms officer in the CIC, where controlled chaos was beginning to build. The glass table was now littered with dotted lines, movements of the other vessels and a large X where their recent prey laid dead. Yorros’ brow dripped sweat onto the edge of the projector but he did his duty, relayed information and coordinated the sailors in the belly of the beast.
Steaming north, the Ellorlon’s silhouette and the column of hellfire behind it proved a worthy motivator to the crews of the Perite and Agate, the two slim destroyers just to its bow that were engaged in a David and Goliath duel with the enemy, diving and ducking under their guns and taking shots at vulnerable points, at times resorting to chucking grenades onto the desk. But as soon as a patch of duller waves presented itself, the Agate’s captain acted. With a graceful dive, a torpedo shot from her port and the destroyer veered right to avoid the explosion. In silence, it slammed into what looked exactly like the ship the cruiser had just sunk. A volcano of water and grime erupted from its side, and within minutes the flag on the top mast drowned in the deep.
One down.
With their surprise attack spoiled by the very literal magic trick of the Royal Navy, her two sisters sunk and the battle immediately turning against them, the last imperial cruiser burned her engines to death and charged forth, taking the crippled Perite by surprise from behind a wave. It sailed up the peak and slid down its steep surface and the bow rose out of the water and then swung back down with enough force to temporarily sink the front section.
The last thing the Perite’s captain saw was the cloud of seafoam and the image of a snake baring its fangs, painted on the decorated prow. It made no sense. No sense at all. The radar had indicated its position a half-mile out, to their port bow. But time slowed, and the proof was undeniable in death: it made no sense, yet here it was.
The smaller destroyer split with a spine-chilling creak and whine, the metal structure bending and giving in to the fast, heavy hunk of steel that had smashed into its ribs. Metal shattered like glass, ammunition spilled into the sea and men fell under the crushing weight of the enemy vessel’s hull. Alas, another surprise attack spoiled. The Ellorlon, Keld, Ballater and Agate reacted quicker than the first time. Keld, the closest, veered left and scratched the enemy’s stern to avoid a collision, clearing the way for the other three to open fire. A few well-placed shots guided by the diviners’ sight, now clear of intrusions, put the beast to rest, and as quickly as it had started, the battle ended.
Radlinka’s eyes adjusted. It had all been so quick, the attack, and the storm. The enemy ships appeared in unnatural positions, avoiding their detection. The diviners’ sudden blindness, the radar and radio malfunction. As much as one could believe in coincidence, none of those could be casual. But it didn’t take a wizard either to figure out that magic was involved, or perhaps divine intervention. “Send out rafts for the Agate. Radio the Keld and Ballater to go back for the Spinel,” she commanded. “Keep us on heightened alert until further notice.”
The sun broke through the clouds just as rescue crafts reached the dead Spinel.
“Impossible. Check again.” In the heart of the kingdom, Admiral Winds of Change groaned. An enormous map of the world stood before them, and at the 23rd parallel, an operator placed yet another red model of a ship. “Enemy contact now? Why?” Their robotic legs clicked on the wood, one of the sounds in the war room aside from the tapping of typewriters and the incessant sound of pencils on charts.
“Multiple, sir. Tiger, Falcon and Hawk. Lion reports seeing activity, but they couldn’t verify.”
Their hands clenched the wooden desk, leaving an imprint. The signs were there, but they preferred not to confirm them. Small clashes, reports of incursions and breaches of national waters, sightings of jet black vessels, had all come in increasing numbers over the last weeks. A crescendo of provocation that Admiral Winds dreaded to hear the climax of. Dread they could, but here it was, loud and clear. A cacophony of coordinated attacks against scattered patrols and young sailors. The names of sunk destroyers and cruisers piling on the desk, the letters to be signed, the funeral processions to be planned.
The warforged’s mechanical eyes closed. “Get me the Defense Minister and summon a cabinet meeting. Relay that to the Royal Palace too.” They stood, at full height, a frighteningly unnatural perfect 200 centimeters, and walked with the smaller assistant at their side. “Set Fleet Readiness Condition to Two and alert all personnel. I want ships in the water within 48 hours. Reinforce spellcasting personnel fleetwide, at least two more on each ship.” They stopped at the exit to the room, looked back, and let out an exasperated artificial exhale.
“It begins, I suppose.”