Legends

Chapter 14: Escapades

Titanic was seeing red. She barely acknowledged the presence of Davis and Chatelin even as the destroyers steamed in formation beside her. They stuck as close to her as possible, recognizing their flagships lack of weaponry, her inability to defend herself. Titanic was hardly thinking about her capabilities. She was too angry to think logically in that "I have no weapons, maybe I should take a step back and let someone else do the shooting." HELL NO! She would ram that Ne bitch if she had to! But sitting back and watching the fireworks was NOT an option!

Chatelin was staring at her flagship with a mix of awe and fear. Titanic was a name spoken with reverence and even then only in the most mixed of circumstances. She was a goddess among ships but a goddess no one wanted to summon. All knew of her tragic fate and no one wanted that curse brought upon themselves by being so foolish as to invoke her name unnecessarily.

Davis whacked Chatelin upside the head. "You can oggle later!" She scolded the Canadian.

"Aye." Chatelin agreed. She was staring out of awe, yes. This was the ship to rival all ships. But Titanic's 'assets' were more than enough to overcome the superstitious and engage the more carnal side of human nature. Chatelin blushed. She felt like and did not wish to be compared to Johnson, the lewd destroyer who always was staring at New Jersey's boobs. But Titanic had nice curves and a lovely rack. "Right, enough of that. Back to work." Chatelin thought to herself.

The Ne was almost home free. The remains of her division were being destroyed by that outdated cruiser and her destroyers. But they had served their purpose, distracting Olympia to allow the Ne to escape. She effortlessly changed course down a side canal that would rejoin with the main river in a few miles. A perfect way around the kanmusu force. As her thoughts turned to the rewards her Princess would give her for this mission, the Ne's aft gun turret suddenly exploded!

"Hello there!" Titanic purred, giving Chatelin a wink as the destroyer's forward gun dropped back down to loading angle. Chatelin beamed, taking a slight step back to allow Davis to take her place in the firing sequence.

"Brilliant shot!" Davis cried.

"MSSB, never leave home without it." Chatelin smirked, having struck the Ne in a nearly impossible place. Her shell had gone straight down the Ne's aft gunbarrel and into the breach. The only reason it hadn't blown her stern off was because the bulkhead separating the turret from the volatile magazine had done its job.

The Ne took stock of her situation. It wasn't good. Titanic and her escorts blocked the route behind her. Olympia's force was still in the main river and no doubts had Normandie been alerted to the Ne's position and had put a lovely strike force of bomber planes in place for her. Most ships would have surrendered but the Ne had not earned her place as her Princess' most trusted commander and confident in all things by being a coward! She forged on, bow weapons at the ready.

Emerging from the canal she began zig zagging. Normandie's planes were right on que and if it wasn't for their inexperience in dropping bombs on ships, the Ne most certainly would have been reduced to scrap. Instead, she was rewarded for her daring escape by hearing the frustrated scream of Titanic and the angry cries of the destroyers as the Ne opened the throttles on her engines and raced out to the safety of the open sea.

Titanic wanted to go after her but Olympia literally grabbed and kept her in a lock. The cruiser struggled against the 45000 ton liner. It was only because Titanic's engines were in such a neglected state that Olympia could overpower her.

"Titanic, calm down!" She begged.

"I will not! She killed Thebaud!" Titanic's furious shriek shocked the cruiser so much she nearly let go but she kept her grip.

"Titanic, stop you're going to..." Olympia broke off as she noticed something ugly. Blood ran from underneath and out between her fingers. Her eyes widened. "Titanic, you're injured!" She cried.

"What?" Titanic sounded confused as her anger dimmed enough for her to hear what Olympia was saying. She examined her wound. It was deep, opening a section of her hull at the waterline and damaging one of the bulkheads separating boiler room 5 from boiler room 6. "Oh..."

Whether it was the sight of the wound or the severity of it that began to hit her as the adrenaline faded didn't matter. The result was the same. Titanic's face turned ashen, her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Olympia's soft voice and Davis and Chatelin's concerned cries faded as blackness took over Titanic's senses.