The Lotus Eaters

D 466 Portzmoguer, Gallic Navy, Shimmering Sea

More clearly than any other ship in the battle group, the Gallic frigate Portzmoguer heard the engagement below and the death scream of the Diamant. The shocker had been that that destruction had been the result of a supercavitating torpedo. Like many another, the captain of the frigate had been extremely skeptical of the notion that the Balboan submarines had been unarmed.

But a supercavitator? Portzmoguer's monarch, Captain Casabianca, shuddered. We can't hope to outrun one of those and they're so fast we probably can't even react with countermeasures quickly enough.

Of course, between ourselves, Horizon, and Cotentin we can drench that submarine with more torpedoes than it can hope to dodge.

Fat lot of good that will do us if she fires first, or even fires last but before we can destroy her. How many, I wonder, of those supercavitators does she carry? Bastard intel shits! Insisting the subs were unarmed!

The captain's musings were interrupted by the admiral's voice. Coming over the radio. Admiral Duguay sounded furious. His orders were simple. "Sink that submarine."

Already Casabianca could see three more helicopters rotoring in from Charlemagne. A quick glance at his own operations board showed that a fourth frigate, Montcalm, was joining the hunt, leaving only one to secure the carrier. He thought this questionable policy but, hoping to be an admiral himself, someday, chose to say nothing.

The problem, though, is that we can't hear that sub but it can almost certainly hear us. Fortunately, the carrier is a good distance away.

On the plus side, she's still fairly close underneath. If she'd moved much, we'd have heard those irregularly cut gears again.