The Lotus Eaters

S806 Diamant, Shimmering Sea, Terra Nova

The supercavitator was much faster than the more conventionally propelled torpedoes launched by the Diamant. Flying, for all practical purposes, in a vapor bubble created by a combination of its own speed and the shape of its nose, it closed the five and a half kilometer range to the Gallic sub in just at one minute. Guiding by sonar from the Orca and vectoring itself by thrusting out small fins just past the gaseous supercavitation envelope, it reached the Diamant and detonated at a point very near and just forward of where the sail met the hull. The resulting shock wave breached that hull, allowing very high pressure water to burst inside.

The captain knew he, his crew, and his boat were dead as soon as he saw the wave of water coming for him. Pressure built up almost instantly to the point of agony. The flooding being more forward than aft, the Diamant's nose sank quickly to point at the ocean floor. Crew, though by this point few if any were aware of it or much of anything else, were thrown from their feet and down into the collecting mass of water.

Crew further back were likewise catapulted from their feet and tossed against bulkheads. One of them, known but to God, managed to get a watertight door shut after of the hull breach. This didn't matter in the slightest as, without control, the submarine continued its plummet into the depths. At a point in time, that depth exceeded the hull's rating. It collapsed. The pressure, thus the temperature, of the air inside shot up so much and so rapidly that it, and anything it surrounded that was combustible, ignited.

The death shriek of the Diamant could be heard halfway across the ocean.