A few days have passed since I started the torpedo production.

I managed to gather almost 20 tons of steel for Fairy, and although she kept on grumbling, she appears to be somewhat soothed.

At least she withdrew the bills for fuel and maintenance of a boiler.

While I was training with Patricia, I received a report.

[“Radar contact detected.”]

One of the destroyers found a large group of ships on approach.

‘Ping’

“Wait!”

“No waiting!” (P)

“I SAID WAIT!” I blocked Patricia’s sword with my palm, and contacted the other destroyers to regroup on me.

While Patricia was staring dumbfounded at my palm, I slipped from under her sword.

“The training is over for now. We have ships approaching. You go to the ship, I will search for Emmanuel.”

[No doubt he is somewhere in the improvised HQ.]

Just when I stepped into the mansion, I saw him.

Emmanuel was having a heated debate with the purple coats. Something about ‘you imbeciles, the ships are not supposed to be sailed like this’.

“Emmanuel, how about you postpone this discussion? We have a large group of ships approaching.” The man glanced at me, and nodded to the purple coats. They wordlessly reached a consensus, and Emmanuel approached me.

While we were jogging to the harbor, we had some time to talk.

“Where from do they approach?” (E)

“The ships should be coming from the Western perimeter. There were no reports of smoke, so they should be pretty far.”

“Or…” He supposed.

“It is hard to be sure. That is why we are sailing out.”

“In case it is our fleet, they were warned about you having the only steam-powered ships out here.” (E)

“Thanks!”

We boarded the destroyer, and after the ship was undocked and unplugged from Fairy, I set course out of the harbor.

Aotsuki, Yoizuki, Harutsuki, and Hanazuki were already idling by the roadstead. When I steamed out, the squadron formed line ahead, and accelerated to catch up with me.

We sailed around the island, and set course to the open sea.

We were already half-way to the point where the radar contact was received but the radar was silent.

There were no contacts, which is suspicious. No matter how fast we regrouped, the ships would have enough time to sail all the way here.

When we reached the patrol route of the Western perimeter, I started to wonder where the hell could the ships disappear.

I set course back to the island, this time towards the other side of it.

There was simply nothing on the detection equipment.

Only when we reached the island, I saw that we were fooled.

The pirates were fighting against a large group of Benezian vessels.

A part of them matched the information I received from the squadron. Those were caravels – fast and hard-to-track ships. We were lured out, and the main fleet hit the unprotected island.

It was not a small raid. The enemy had a clear naval superiority.

“Battleships!”

The squadron turned after me. When all of the guns were aimed, we opened fire.

BANG BANG BANG

I decided that the first to be taken down should be the squadron of light ships. Their maneuverability is a pain in the lower back but they are also the closest to us.

The Benezians had a lot of time to adapt to my tactics, so the light ships started maneuvering immediately, breaking the aim.

BANG BANG BANG

A HE shell hit the stern of a caravel. The sailors started abandoning the vessel.

BANG BANG BANG

At best we could shake the swarm of light vessels off the pirate main fleet.

When we managed to scare off the caravels, I saw a large number of contacts on approach.

The group was twice as large as the current attacking force the pirates faced.

“Those guys went all-out…”

Emmanuel, Patricia, and I stared at the surface detection radar’s screen.

Our defeat was only the matter of time.

“All pennants, prepare for torpedo attack. Narrow spread, low speed.”

‘Splash’