In the centre formation of the Rus fleet…291Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ZfZ14htGs
Within a maze of steel, the cold of rain, and the heat of barrages, rested a floating fortress perpendicular to her fleet. She had a mass so great that it seemed to produce gravity, creating tides stronger than the moon’s, with a coat of armour that shone without camouflage as if she was unafraid of being found. The ship boasted eight main guns, a dozen secondary turrets, and scores more close-range artillery, accompanied by a crew of two thousand like a bustling city that was three hundred paces long, weighing ninety thousand tonnes of pure weaponry. But as intimidating as she appeared, her turrets had not been engaged in combat like the rest of her comrades.
In the bridge that was as luxuriously decorated as a lounge of an upper-class estate, the vastness of the chamber was not typical for a battleship, not even a flagship, as it extended far into the tower, yet given its excessive appearance, it was manned by a small accompaniment. There was an officer of the watch, a navigator, a pilot, and a captain. However, the bridge was livelier than usual that day.
Seven admirals had gathered around in conversation, some lounging on couches as they were being served drinks and snacks by a company of young serfs who had known nothing but servitude for their whole lives. While his junior admirals partied with refreshments, one man sat alone.
His feet were lying on a leg rest as he dipped a biscuit into a cup of tea, his eyes enjoying the merry sight of a burning horizon. While he was one to find joy in seeing flames enshroud a city like a blanket of death, he seemed annoyed. Deeply minding his thoughts, he had forgotten about his biscuit, which split from the middle. A chunk broke off and fell into the tea, and he paused, his heart racing with fury, but knowing that he should not subject himself to a fit of rage before his men, he sighed and calmed himself, seeking to contribute less to the greying of his hair with the stress he was already confined with.
A door opened far behind him, and footsteps led into his bridge, but he paid them no heed. His captain noticed that his commander was waking up from his rest, and righted himself on his chair, preparing to receive new orders.
Dropping the other half of the biscuit into his tea, he brushed his hands clean of crumbs and drew them into fists. “Are all our gunners this fuckin’ blind?” The admiral, who had already suppressed his anger, spoke with every word coated in flames. “I want this entire city reduced to ashes, not a lone, fuckin’ neighbourhood.” He raised his voice at the captain.
“Aye, sir.” Taking no offence, the captain turned to his pilot and commanded him in brief. “You heard the admiral. Signal all units.”
The pilot stood by the control panel whose levers and buttons were all part of a system of patterns that he had memorised, and there were hundreds that represented an array of orders, but it did not take him long to figure out the needed combination. He turned a key that unlocked the console and flicked switches across the board with precise but fluid motion, like a dance. Once he had confirmed his orders, he turned his key again and locked in its combination.
The horn of the ship bellowed, grabbing the attention of all signallers across the fleet. A telegraph of the admiral’s command was passed to the crew on deck, and the signal lamps placed on every side of the ship flickered a code. In a moment, their message was conveyed from ship to ship until the entire fleet had received their admiral’s order. The last vessel rebounded the code that travelled from the edge to the centre like a ripple in a cup, and when the captain saw that all had been informed, he faced the admiral, who nodded in return.
The captain handed his flare gun and ammunition to his watchman, who quickly ran towards the door, loading the canister as he did, before bursting out of the bridge onto an open wing. He aimed the gun at the sky and fired, the flare illuminating the foggy sky so that the furthest ship leagues away would also be able to see it. Turrets of the nearest ship, who caught sight of it first, halted their gunfire, and it became oddly quiet to the sailors whose ears had been stuffed by the sound of explosions that had happened for the past hour without pause. After the turrets had adjusted their arc, the sailors scrambled to take up their new positions, and the fleet’s guns thundered regularly once more.
It put the admiral’s heart to rest when he witnessed a prettier sight and could finally return to his initial plans. “Ensign, do you have my report?” He asked, captivated by the flames that had spread across the skyline.
“Yes, admiral.” The ensign replied, making his way to the central table.
The admiral heard the pages of his report rustle, and he snapped his fingers, telling the chatter to stop. His junior comrades cleared their throats and returned their empty glasses and unfinished snacks onto the servants’ trays as they gathered around the table. Looking at his tea, dirtied by the biscuit he had dropped in it, the admiral drank it as a man who wasted nothing and set his cup down on the saucer before promptly rising from his chair, straightening out his grey uniform, unlike most admirals who would have worn navy blue.
The uniform once belonged to his father, who had a larger build than the admiral. However, he never sought a tailor to alter it. He kept its original size and design from when his father had received it decades ago, but despite his achievements, he did not display any of his awards. Wearing no medals or ornaments, the only pieces of value that he owned were his buttons and rank plates on his shoulders, which had four double-headed eagles on either side rather than the stars that the republic commonly used. Warm electric lights illuminated his face, revealing his worn but clean-shaven appearance. His brow was scarred from an accident as a child, and he had intense eyes of blue. Still, his stature was by no means small, even when compared to his father. He had the frame of a sailor who worked in an engine room and the gaze of an intellectual navigator. Mikhail Radilov, Admiral of the Rus, marched towards his table of operations, each step resounding.
His demeanour was always stern, and as he took his place beside his admirals, he gestured for the ensign to quickly lay out his reports tidily. Radilov placed markers on a map encompassing the entire length and width of the table, and making sure that he was following everything that the admiral had asked of him, the ensign laid out a stack of numbers and documents that soon made it clear to every officer what it entailed.
Holding his chin deep in thought, one of his subordinates recognised the shape that the markers had formed on the map. “So, this is the infamous North Sea Wall.” A flag admiral assumed that this was the prospect the admiral was aiming for. “Our final barrier…” He looked at his comrades, who also understood the gravity of such a blockade.
As he drew his finger along the line of markers, the admiral answered their assumptions. “Indeed, but I am uninterested in breaking out of a prison that keeps us fed and fat.” Radilov pressed his fists against the table and leaned over the map.
“How so do you mean?” Standing beside him, an elder colour admiral asked, his eyes staying on the reports.
Radilov turned to his chief advisor as if he had expected him to know, having been a comrade of his late father for decades, but the elder simply did not wish to say it aloud. The admiral moved a pot of markers closer to himself and spilt it over the table while looking at each of his junior admirals and the questions forming in their eyes. The headquarters grew curious to hear his plans, and the bridge it fell silent, with the only sounds coming from the markers being placed on the map. Soon, it became clear to his junior admirals what he intended, but they still made incorrect assumptions.
“An invasion?” Another flag admiral blurted out, taking no time to consider his words carefully. “An invasion of that scale would take years of preparation.” He warned as if he thought that none of his comrades had noticed its problem.
“Then, you have your answer.” Widening his eyes, a younger colour admiral dismissed his thoughtlessness, wondering how he came to earn his rank. “I doubt that the admiral would want to test their defences without the grand marshal’s help.” In the corner of his eye, he saw his admiral maintain his gaze on the map.
The turret fire did not cease, but the admirals treated the explosions like ambient noises as they leaned over the scattered pages in thought. The less interested admirals took out their pipes to smoke and called for Radilov’s servants again to continue drinking and snacking, needing to fidget with something other than their rusty heads. The few who paid attention to the contents of the reports in detail were loyal to their work, but Radilov was quietly judging them on their faces that grew more confused as they tried to bridge each document. When one man became enlightened, his comrades followed, but they began to notice a pattern in the plan that revealed the admiral’s deviousness.
A flag admiral in his twenties righted himself, his hand holding onto one page, for he could not believe what he was seeing. “These aren’t troop numbers… nor values of equipment…” He read each column, repeatedly.
Shaking his head, the elder colour admiral distanced himself from the markers, not needing to know any more. “Population. Wealth. Food.” He sighed, turned to Radilov, and asked him. “Do you truly intend on doing this, Mikhail?”
With his shadow ominously cast over the map of the continent, he raised one hand and corrected him. “Slaves. Gold. Tools.” Lifting one finger at a time, the admiral counted as if he was lecturing his men. “Regardless of what that fuckin’ premier thinks, they will be the resources our Grand Prince can feed on to revive the Tsarreich.” He glanced at them for hints of disapproval.291Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrDZqE4HPrS
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