Down to the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

emerged out of the smoke and confusion. Racing in without hesitation, it slammed into the starboard bow of the Asaga . A huge mine set in the frigate’s ram below the waterline blew.
    The two ships actually leapt out of the water from the detonation, the entire forward half of the frigate disappearing. Asaga ’s bow seemed to hang in the air for a second, and then it mushroomed outward. The explosion had snapped through its lower decks, penetrating into the forward magazines, which held nearly four hundred tons of shells and black powder.
    The force of the explosion, even from half a mile away, stunned Hanaga. The men in the armored cupola staggered backward from the force of the blow. The forward hundred feet of the Asaga disappeared. The barrel of a five-inch gun, weighing several tons, came spinning out of the cloud of debris, slamming across the deck of the flagship, punching clean through the armor until it stuck out like a broken bone.
    The aft end of the dying battle cruiser rose, then came crashing back down. Its forward momentum drove the ship forward ramming hundreds of tons of water through shattered decks and dragging the ship under. The stern lifted up, propellers still spinning, even as the boilers filled with water, exploding.
    More detonations convulsed the ship as it corkscrewed. Aft turrets popped from their mounts. A hundred tons of iron and steel dropped, crashing into the water. The crews, if still alive inside, undoubtedly had been smashed to bloody pulps by the blow.
    What was left of the ship went straight down. Air, raw steam, and flotsam jetted out of the broken armor plates and the open turret mounts. The stem disappeared beneath the boiling waves, and then, several seconds later, another explosion erupted, blasting part of the stem back out of the water as the aft magazines blew. The shock of the explosion raced through the water, sending a thunderbolt shock through the decks of the flagship.
    The Asaga was gone. From the time of the ramming till all was destroyed had been less than thirty seconds…and a thousand of Hanaga’s finest sea warriors were lost.
    The flagship had continued to turn, and the disaster was now astern. Five of Hanaga’s six turrets were engaged. The enemy van steamed in the same direction less than six thousand yards off while the insane swirl of the frigate battle raged between them. Both sides tried to block the other from closing while wanting, at the same time, to dash through and make their suicidal runs on the enemy battle cruisers. The light armored cruisers had joined the straggle as well. Both of the fleets having run to windward now turned in on each other.
    He saw his first clear hit on an enemy battle cruiser, not the flagship, but still a deadly strike, lifting a forward turret clean off. Massive geysers rose hundreds of feet high, churning the turquoise water into a foaming maelstrom of dark sand, coral, and thousands of dead fish.
    The two fleets raced on for several leagues, gradually angling in closer, leaving the frigate battle astern.
    “Our flyers, my lord!”
    Hanaga ran to the starboard side and peeked out through the open viewing slit. He had kept hidden a hundred aero-steamers, based on land and far heavier than the flimsy handful of planes launched from the rocking deck of a ship.
    The airships swept in, hugging the water, several passing dangerously close to his own ship. When his forward turret fired, the shock of the passing shell tore a wing off of a plane. It flipped over, spiraling out of control and crashed into the sea.
    The air fleet pressed forward, spreading out.
    “Damn! They are not concentrating!” Hanaga cried, looking over at his signals officer. “Can’t you order them to concentrate on the flagship!”
    “My lord, in all this confusion, they’ll never see the signal flags!”
    “Try, damn it, try!”
    Ignoring the danger, he stepped out of the aft hatch of the cupola and came around to the forward bridge. Part of the