There were at least three of them, storming into the bridge with pistols and machine pistols. Kessler had only seen them coming by mistake when he thought a glint reflected off a nearby gauge. As the door had swung out, light from the passageway had reflected off the control panel and gave the old Captain the half a heartbeat of time he needed to call out his trouble on the communications network and drop behind the periscope well. A shower of sparks fluttered around the controls around him as he pulled his knees in with a yowling grunt, his abdominal wound still a mess of healing tissue. He’d left his rifle on the control panel, Hochberg would have kicked him for being a dozy officer. The ghouls were circling around the periscope to finish their work when Kessler leaned back against the cold steal, eyes shut in preperation for the coming onslaught of bullets. For a moment, in the back of his mind, Kessler could remember talking with Kaptain Sajer.
“That’s true, luetnant, but it also allows that vessel to pass. You understand why we’re here, don’t you?” Sajer leaned across the small table and shifted the emptied lemon half forward an inch.
“Yes, Herr Kaptain, but that ships lives and so do we to sink another, another day” Kessler pushed the butter dish to the edge of the table, simulating an escaping U-boat.
Sajer rocked back in his seat and scratched at the scruff under his jawline throughtfully. His eyes scanned the table, then this 2nd Mate, he was evaluating the man and Kessler shifted uneasily in his chair and raised his coffee cup to his lips to distract himself. The Kaptain’s German had that slight twist of the French accent from his mother country, and as he carved off another hunk of months old bread he tried to reason with his hesitant 2nd Mate.
“The Allies are feeding the dogs that keep biting at our lands, and the ships with the most important goods are guarded the most. We have to take those risks. It is our charge as captain of warships to maintain our fatherland. We don’t have to be reckless, but we can’t allow them to simply slip past because there is some risk. Conflict is risk. That’s why war is always a gamble. Would anyone have ever wagered The Republique could have capitulated in a month to the 3rd Reich? That Russia would fair better than France?”
Kessler bit the inside of his cheek in thought and folded his arms over his chest. He knew there were always risks in conflict but the kinds of risks that would get an entire crew and ship sunk seemed reckless, borderline criminal. “How can you justify sending nearly a hundred men to the bottom for a chance to keep some munitions from potentially being used against us?”
Sajer almost rolled his eyes, but he was part teacher as was as captain, instead he leaned in closely and pointed to his white cap. “This is why. Because captains are charged with command of a ship and her crew and those men place their bodies in my leadership. The state grants me the authority to utilize its greatest weapons and the men of this boat keep those weapons finely sharpened. If I keep a sword well honed and always in its sheath, why have it? We’re in war, leutnant, our nation sends up to deliver violence on its behalf. That is our charge until we stop wearing these uniforms.”
Kessler could tell his caution and avoidance of open conflict was at odds with how Sajer viewed the war, and the young officer had en even harder time accepting the responsibility of so many lives. It was why he never remained skipper. The luetnant-Kaptain spoke up in his defense once more, “But there are always kills available that don’t have to put us in so much danger, Herr Kaptain, why take those risky shots when we could just as easily snag the slow at the edge of the pack. We’re wolves, we don’t charge headlong into a heard, we stalk it and cull the slow and inattentive.”
Sajer lowered the brim of his cap down, giving him a deeply authoritative look as he squared his shoulders to Kessler, “When you wait for you opponent to make a mistake you let them keep the initiative. You must always seek to force your enemies into a new plan. Never sit and wait for them to miss something, force them to account for your attacks until they over extend or wheel too slowly and then strike out. Then you can dash into the depths. It is always a risky gamble of assured doom, that’s war, lad.”
Kessler bumped his head against the periscope well, waiting for his fate to be delivered to him. He didn’t have his weapon, his position was known, he was surrounded and out of options, his enemy wasn’t going to make a mistake this time. He looked off toward the depth guage, watching the needle steady at 200 meters and sighed. There was only one option left for the old man and his hands unlatched and removed his re-breather from his face. As the first ghoul rounded the console and aimed his pistol at Kessler, the captain gambled.
Hochberg was scrambling around the gyroscope room, trying to figure a way to scuttle the chamber without drowning in it with his previous plan. The old chief had to get back up to the bridge and finish this mission, had to see the Kettle destroyed before it could be made into another mans mistake and nightmare again. The chief tried to raise Kessler on the comms but there was nothing. Ke and Wells had hurried down and called out to Hochberg, ensuring the old man wouldn’t shoot them down as they entered. The relic was in a complete frenzy, grenade in hand and diagram pinched between his fingers as he dashed around the room. Ke and Wells looked down to the fallen SEALs and then to the hulking red pile of muscle beside the gyroscope engine. The scene was brutal and confusing and Hochberg looked crazed.
Ke spoke up first, “What’s the plan now?”
The old man leaped down from the makeshift catwalk and scanned the room once more. He finally turned around and pointed quickly to the bodies.
“Pile ‘zem up outside ‘zeh door, ‘zehn come back in here and help me with the leavers and pumps. If we move fast enough we can scuttle ‘zis room and lock it down before we lose control.” The veteran booted the heavy hatch the rest of the way opened and beckoned the divers over with a series of rapid gestures.
The hefty bodies of the Navy’s finest were slumped over the watertight hatch and Wells looked back inside the room, eyes settling on the rippling mass of muscles and flesh with a smashed in head. Hochberg paced through the divers sight and pointed to a red leaver poking out of the bulkhead.
“Get to ‘zat one, hurry. Little doc, get over ‘zair and get ready at ‘zat gripper.” The old cheif scrambled atop of the catwalk and reached out for a heavy hatch, looking down to his little team. “When I open ‘zis door ‘za water is going to push in quick. Get your levers down and get ‘za hell out.”
The pair at either end of the room nodded and Hochberg looked down at Burton once more, satisfied with the butchering death the fanatic had met with. He went over the calculation in his head once again, it would take the room probably eight seconds to fill with water and in that time everyone would have to get clear and he would have to have shoved a grenade into the primary gear shaft. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Hochberg kicked his feet off the guardrails and let his weight pull the latch down hard, falling a few meters to the deck and crumbling quickly beside Burton. Water gushed into the room like a river surging through a fresh crack in a dam. Ke and Wells pulled their levers and dashed toward the exit hatch, feet clattering by Hochberg as he knelt in the quickly rising water and planted the grenade firmly in the heavy cogs of the gyroscope. Yanking the white bead away and jumping-wading through the flash flooding in the room, the old chief finally crashed through the hatch, turned and helped cram the door shut as water spilled round the edges. The chief pushing hard against the deck into the door with every bit of strength he had as Wells shouldered into the hatch. Ke quickly pushed the locking mechanism shut and then it was over. The sound of the grenade thumped harmlessly in the water held back on the other-side.
The old chief let his head hang for a moment as he caught his breath and Wells slumped his back against the hatch, feet resting against the dead men he’d just risked everything for. Ke looked around in the night vision world and then glanced up to the chief, spotting his fractured helmet. She spoke lowly in the blackness, feeling as though she had to sneak, “Can you see at all, chief?”
Hochberg had already thrown one of his fallen brothers over his shoulder and was pulling the other by his drag strap down the passageway. “I can see well enough but I need you two to keep up, we’ve got to get back up to the bridge!”