literature

Moment of madness

Deviation Actions

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   "Sir, commander is calling for you!"
   "Oh my, give me a break!"
   Captain of the Wonland Air Force Kassrim Ramoss cursed once again and followed the adjutant to the Command. It was a solid, large building, made of high quality concrete. It was able to withstand direct hit from a 250kg bomb. All main WAF airbases were equipped like that on the theory that rear area bases have to be resistant to air strikes, as only those could reach them.
   Dalianetar and Santean armies, breaking through the Wonland ground defenses, now put this theory to a harsh test.
   Brigadier Josh Maddows was waiting for him. He was small, fat and shortsighted, but he was a decent administrator and a good tactician. It was, of course, his idea to use aerial power to support the Navy. That allowed the battleships, remaining after the September strike, once again successfully engage Dalianetar blockade forces.
   So, when such a superior officer calls for one of his subordinates, he comes, no matter how tired he is after another hard flight against numerically superior enemy.
   The fact that Ramoss, technically, was not a member of Wonland military, was forgotten long time ago. Everyone now treated him as an Air Force captain and the most successful Wonland ace. Not only Wonland ace - so far, he achieved nineteen victories, more than any other fighter pilot of this war. With six more victories from Espica civil war, he was the first fivefold ace since The War of Honor, fought between Sangar and Monstarnay, ended nineteen years ago.
   If a man like this is called to the commander just after he returned from a mission, it cannot be a good sign.
   Maddows looked at him for a few seconds, as if he was rethinking something. But then he decided to go on.
   "I know you want to rest, captain," he said tiredly. Nearly every Wonland high-ranking officer talked this way now. After the main line of defense fell, there was little that could stop three Dalianetar armies and their Santean stooges from advancing into the Wonland heartland.
   "Nevertheless, there is an important work that needs to be done, and you're the one who have the best chance to do it," Maddows continued. "Lieutenant Harris from the Navy will brief you."
   Ramoss looked to the tall, graying man who entered on brigadier's call, and nodded to himself. If it was a job for the Navy, he really was the best man on the base. Although he had no formal training, he learned to fly on Farsos, and his mother was former instructor, co-founder and current commander-in-chief of the argosian Naval Air Service. So he had plenty experience with flying over the sea. No other pilot here had any, except from the latest operations.
   "Captain." Harris brought a map with him and now he put it on the table. "Here's the deal. Yesterday, the Leposian battleship Resolution arrived to the entrance to the harbor, just to the blockade line. We need somebody to fly there and check what's going on. According to the captain of that ship, they're there to protect Leposian civilians and civilian shipping, but we're not sure."
   Of course they were not sure, Ramoss thought. The Resolution was the most powerful battleship ever constructed, and what remained of the Wonland Navy after a week of constant air raids was not a match for her. Even before these raids, after the September strike, the entire Navy would have harsh times encountering such a ship in any sort of open combat.
   "All right. Where is she?"
   "Right there." Harris pointed on the map. "Too far from our remaining observation posts, so air recon is the only option. Be warned, captain. There are some Gray ships in the vicinity. Looks like two cruisers and at least three destroyers. She herself has some escort with her, too."
   "Wonderful." Of course Dalianetar ships would be there, with their AA guns ready. Ramoss grimaced. After their last encounter with the Wonland aircrafts, they will fire with full power at anything resembling an airplane. And five ships could accommodate a lot of guns.
   "We have recon Lancer ready for you, captain," Maddows said. "You have barely two hours of daylight, so I suggest you take off at once."
   "Yes, sir." Ramoss didn't even bother to pretend he has any enthusiasm for this mission. After all, at least Maddows would know exactly how he feels about it.

   Recon Lancer was built on the idea that a fighter, faster and more maneuverable than larger planes, should be able to sneak where other planes cannot. And, if engaged by enemy interceptors, escape them. Like most theories, it didn't work so well, because Dalianetar AW-31 was at least fifty kph faster than Lancer. And, of course, replacing guns with cameras and additional fuel meant that Lancer was defenseless.
   Fortunately, on this mission, no AW-31 or any other Dalianetar fighter should emerge. At least that was what Ramoss was thinking while gaining altitude. Gray ground bases were in the opposite direction and too far for their fighters to patrol over the fleet. And as far as he knew, Dalianetar Navy possessed no fighters at all.
   He sighed. After all, he got what he wanted. At home, he couldn't be a fighter pilot due to his slight shortsightedness. He refused to serve with multiengine bombers or low-level infantry support crafts, so there wasn't any professional carrier in the Air Force available for him. Instead, he left to the Espica civil war. Royalists were desperate for good pilots, and the fact that he had to wear glasses was not important for them. By achieving six victories in a war where both sides together possessed no more than a hundred aircrafts he clearly demonstrated his abilities.
   But Espica fell to Dalianetar and Santean three months ago, and he and the surviving pilots escaped to Wonland. Here, he worked as a fighter instructor when Santean started its invasion. So once again, he found himself in the cockpit of a fighter.
   And now he was trying to stop the avalanche. Wonland possessed a large variety of second-handed fighters from all over the world, but this mix of older planes performed poorly against aircraft like AW-31. Even modern all-metal crafts like Lancers had troubles against these planes. Despite Lancer's much better firepower, AW-31 was much faster and at least equally nimble. If only Lancer possessed some armor protection, it would give Abyss to the Gray hordes. But this was only a wishful thinking.
   But, he got what he wanted. He was, after all, a fighter pilot. And a damn good one.
   Deep under him, the hills protecting Queen Tarya Harbor on the side of the sea slipped behind. Their seaside slopes, ripped by craters, were burning. Gray blockade forces were shelling them periodically, to silence Wonland coastal batteries. It was nearly impossible to survive there. Whenever blockade ships spotted any move, they opened fire with everything they had.
   Ramoss continued to the position tagged on his map. He flew high, to avoid any light AA fire. Also clouds should make it hard for Dalianetar watches to spot him. On the other side, it would give him difficult time to locate his target. But, a battleship as large as the Resolution should be hard to miss.
   It turned out he was right. Suddenly, clouds opened and he spotted several shadows, lying on the still water level. One of them was nearly twice as wide as others, and also longer. That had to be the Resolution.
   He actually never saw this ship before, but he had heard about her. After all, he grew near the main Argos naval base, in the naval community. With nearly fifty thousand tons and twelve 40cm guns, other battleships could only hope to outrun such a ship. Which wasn't an easy task, because she and her only sister Victory were able to reach top speed around fifty-two kph. And now, one of them was here. No wonders Wonlanders were nervous about Lepos intentions.
   As he approached, he used his knees to steer his Lancer, holding a binocular in hands. It was late, short late-October day was dying, and there was not much light.
   But it was enough for him to recognize that all four Resolution's main turrets are turned upon starboard. In fact, their guns had to be pointed at nearby Gray ships.
   His eyes, accustomed to evaluate ranges, estimated that the larger two of these warships were no more than fifteen hundred meters from the battleship. It looked delirious, because there was no way for a battleship to lower her guns enough to hit something that close.
   At least, for a common battleship. He reminded himself that there was nothing common about the Resolution class.
   After a few minutes of guessing what for the Abyss is going on, he got back to work. Harris gave him an identification guidebook, so he started to look for the Gray ships. He was unable to determine the type of those destroyers, but the larger ones were easier. With five dual turrets, they had to be Albatross or Auk class heavy cruisers: formidable opponents for another cruiser, but not a match at all for the battleship.
   Because he was looking at them, he saw it only moments after the whole crap started. For a first few seconds, he did not recognize it. But then he started to yell into the radio in shock, as he realized what those white traces, traveling from the cruisers to the battleship, had to be.
   Of course, there was no chance he could warn the Resolution. Even if they were listening to him, it was too late. The battleship, lying still so close, was doomed the exact moment Dalianetar cruisers launched their torpedoes. To reach they target, they needed much less than one minute, and there was nothing anybody onboard the battleship could do with it. From such a close range, any torpedo had to hit, and ten of them was much more than any battleship could survive, no matter how big.
   But the Resolution didn't die alone. Ramoss was still yelling pointlessly, when it looked like the whole starboard of the battleship exploded. Only much later he came to realize that somebody onboard the doomed warship had to see what is coming, and ordered to open fire.
   Grenades from the "Ton-guns" were much faster than torpedoes. And it seemed it was equally hard to miss with those cannons, even at such a close range, as with torpedoes.
   Lepos forty-centimeters were called "Ton-guns" because of the weight of their shell. No armor was able to stop such a shell fired from less than two kilometers. Not even battleships possessed such protection, and Resolution's murderers were mere cruisers.
   Just before the Resolution's starboard was covered by water pillars, one of the Gray cruisers simply exploded. One moment, there was a two hundred meters long ship, the other moment she changed into a dark, fiery mushroom-like cloud at least a hundred meters high. The shockwave swayed Ramoss's Lancer and he had to battle it before he regained control.
   When he was able to look at the ships once again, they were sinking. The Resolution was careening fast, with starboard main deck under the water already. One of the cruisers was still covered with a huge cloud of smoke, and the second one fared no better. Its ruined superstructures were burning all over, masts were down, and the stern already vanished under the surface. Even the destroyers looked like they went through a battle as two of them were on fire.
   Only after seeing this drama, Ramoss realized he forgot to switch on his cameras. He did it now, flying in circles around the massacre, and finally found time to answer phrenetic calls from the ground control.
   Later, he learned that during this moment of madness, out of three and a half thousand crewmembers of the battleship and both cruisers, about two hundred people survived. While running the blockade later in the night, Wonland 6th Destroyer Fleet hammered Dalianetar destroyers, already hit by fragments of the exploded cruiser. So the only ships, which survived what the history called The Queen Tarya Bay Incident, were two destroyers of Resolution escort.
   Two days later, after Ramoss returned from another pointless attempt to stop incoming Gray bombers, he learned that Lepos declared war on Dalianetar. His colleagues were greatly thrilled with the news, hoping that Lepos will avert the inevitable defeat. It did no good to Wonland though - the remnants of the army were forced to surrender seventeen days later.

   Kasrim Ramoss, the only eyewitness of the unprecedented Dalianetar attack on a neutral ship, was one of the few able to evacuate from Wonland to Lepos. His claims were strongly denounced by Dalianetar nearly for the rest of his life; he was even tortured during his later capture in an attempt to force him to withdraw his testimony that the Dalianetar ships fired first. Of course, anyone who thought about it knew that these cruisers would be in no position to launch torpedoes after attacked by the Resolution. Dalianetar finally admitted guilt forty years after the incident, in 1828. The Triumvirate however claimed that it was a rogue operation, mounted by the Intelligence Service without official approval from the War Council.
   It came with great cost to the entire Eastland, as it lengthened the war to six years of harsh fighting. It finally ended in 1793 after two nuclear strikes against Dalianetar, performed by Argos. By that time, Dalianetar and its allies already lost nearly all their conquered territories to the Southern Alliance of Lepos, Argos and liberated Wonland and were defending their own southern borders.
Another important moment of the Alliance War on my world Mirane ([link]).

Once again, many thanks to *Lawenta for her grammar corrections.
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Lawenta's avatar
Because he was looking at them, he saw it only moments after the whole crap started.

That is the moment when this story starts to resemble David Weber's descriptions of battles to me, and that feeling doesn't stop until the end of the story. And that's a compliment coming from me, because I think his descriptions are very good and thrilling. Apparently you should read Harrington in English more often! :giggle: The text flows much more smoothly than in the Moment of glory story, which is something only excessive reading can do for you. :)

Keep up the good work! :hug: