Chapter 275: Six Against One, Yet Still Getting Counter-Killed Before Death. Do You Even Know How to Play? |
Truth be told, in the initial plan formulated by Lelouch and Admiral Hipper to lure the Britannia Royal Navy into feeding them kills piece by piece, they had envisioned it like this:
Once the Demania battlecruisers successfully intercepted and destroyed the Britannia light cruiser carrying the Lusha ambassador, capturing both the ambassador and the secret treaty...
The Demanian battlecruisers were supposed to retreat south. At this point, they should have maintained radio silence to delay their encounter with the Britannia high-speed battlecruiser fleet, dragging the subsequent battlefield as close to Demanian home waters as possible.
The closer the battlefield was to their homeland, the greater their advantage would be. They might even benefit from additional airship reconnaissance and shore-based scout planes for artillery spotting.
At the same time, drawing the fight closer to Demania increased the likelihood and severity of the Britannia fleet making rushed mistakes and breaking formation.
Before the campaign erupted, the Britannia Home Fleet had been stationed across different ports. They could not cram all their warships into a single harbor; they had to divide their forces to blockade every route the Demanian Navy could use to enter the Atlantic.
Normally, the high-speed battlecruiser fleet was deployed to Scapa Flow to block the sea lanes between the Shetland Islands and the Faroe Islands, while the relatively fast Queen-class battleships anchored at the Port of Rosyth in Edinburgh.
The bulk of the slower battleships were supposed to be stationed at Dover. However, the Port of Dover had been ruined a year ago, bombarded across the channel by the 380mm long-range coastal defense guns the Demanians had built at the Port of Calais.
As a result, the Channel Fleet, originally destined for Dover, had to shift a portion of its forces north to Yarmouth. But Yarmouth was not large enough either, forcing the remainder to split between Southampton and even Plymouth further inside the channel.
Meanwhile, the slower battleships stationed in the southern ports of the Britannia mainland would need more time to assemble. Combined with their sluggish speed, it was entirely normal for them to arrive at the battlefield half a day—or even longer—after David Beatty's high-speed fleet.
In the Earth timeline, Jellicoe had managed to reach the battlefield and support Beatty within a relatively short timeframe. That was not because his older battleships were particularly fast; he simply relied on the Royal Navy's absolute intelligence advantage. Having long since cracked the Demanian naval codes, the slower battleships were able to set sail and assemble ahead of time.
In this timeline, however, the Demanians had implemented thorough camouflage, and their true plans were never coordinated over the radio. Stripped of their intelligence advantage, the Britannians could only begin a hasty assembly after the incident off the coast of Norway. As a result, the gap between Beatty and Jellicoe was stretched far wider than it had been in history.
All of this was merely Lelouch and Hipper's original vision. Strictly speaking, however, the plan was not flawless.
Once the actual fighting broke out, they had to face several issues. The first was that the interception point for the Lusha ambassador's transport was simply too far north. Typically, they had to reach the open waters between Norway's Trondheim and Narvik to pull it off. This had already been proven by their recent actions—only by sailing to these coordinates did they leave the Britannia main fleet's support range, allowing the Demanian battlecruisers to spring their hidden ambush successfully.
With the interception point so far north, Hipper's battlecruiser fleet would inevitably run headlong into Beatty's blockade on their return trip. Given Beatty's speed, he was guaranteed to intercept Hipper in the waters north of Bergen and east of the westernmost tip of the Norwegian peninsula.
After all, the geography of the Norwegian Sea dictated it. The westernmost horn of the Scandinavian Peninsula could not be bypassed. No matter which route Hipper took, he had to pass through this area. Even if he swung slightly further out to sea, he still risked running into the enemy.
Therefore, even with strong support from the Demania High Seas Fleet's main force, the scenario would ultimately play out as a sandwich: Beatty blocking the middle, Hipper fleeing back from the north and forced to smash through Beatty's lines, while the High Seas Fleet's slower battleships rushed up from the south to catch Beatty in a pincer and cover Hipper's breakout.
This tactic still carried inherent risks. Who could guarantee that Hipper would successfully break through Beatty's forces?
Naval battles were fraught with variables. If the ship carrying the key figures was sunk by Beatty, or even heavily damaged enough to lose speed, Beatty's interception goal would be achieved. By the time Scheer arrived with the slower Demanian battleships, Beatty could still cut his losses and flee westward to survive.
At the same time, the High Seas Fleet's slow main ships could not arrive any earlier. If they showed up too soon, Beatty would realize the overwhelming disparity in power. Knowing it was certain death, he would use his high speed to slip away rather than throw his life away for nothing.
But there was no such thing as a risk-free war. Absolute certainty did not exist on the battlefield. At the time, Hipper could not find a better solution, so he could only choose the least flawed option available.
However, as the battle progressed, a new wrinkle emerged. The battlecruiser Lutzow had unfortunately taken a torpedo during the forced capture of Count Benckendorff. With its speed dropping, it was highly unlikely to keep up with the main battlecruiser fleet's retreat.
This unexpected variable gave Admiral Hipper and the death-defying Captain Bernhardt of the Lutzow a new idea.
They would use the Lutzow's deliberate exposure to lure Beatty slightly further north, leaving a gap in the coastal waters of the Norwegian Sea for Hipper to slip through under the cover of darkness.
Because the Lutzow had leaked its radio coordinates, Beatty's behavior would change. Without knowing Hipper's location, Beatty would normally have taken a zigzag, roundabout route, sailing first to the westernmost cape of the Scandinavian Peninsula near Bergen, before spreading his net northeast.
Now that Beatty knew where the Lutzow was, he would undoubtedly chart a more direct course. The shortest distance between two points was a straight line, which saved time and allowed for a faster interception.
Even if he did not sail in a perfectly straight line to maintain some caution, Beatty would at least narrow the scope of his search net. Under the veil of night, as long as Hipper hugged the fjords tightly enough, the odds of slipping past were incredibly high.
Moreover, ensuring this scheme succeeded required a crucial prerequisite: during the earlier interception of the Danae light cruiser squadron, the other battlecruisers had to remain completely hidden. The Britannians could not be allowed to know that more than two Demanian battlecruisers were operating in these waters.
As fate would have it, they had achieved precisely that. During the ambush, the Lutzow was the only Demanian capital ship to show its face. In the frantic distress telegram the Danae sent to the rear before sinking, it only mentioned the Lutzow and a handful of auxiliary vessels.
In this way, the sunken Britannia warship had inadvertently helped the Demanians mislead their own side.
Though this misdirection came in the form of a "faulty autopsy report," the Danae's unfortunate demise had perfectly misguided the comrades rushing in to investigate and avenge it.
They did not call tacticians dirty for nothing. A trick like this could not be improvised if even a single condition had been missing.
It was all thanks to Hipper and the others spending so much time around Lelouch. They had learned to be underhanded, allowing them to adapt and exploit the situation so masterfully.
By the time Beatty realized he had been fooled and turned back to chase Hipper's remaining four high-speed battlecruisers, the stage would be set: Hipper fleeing, Beatty pursuing, and Hipper luring Beatty into a head-on collision with Demania's slower main fleet.
Furthermore, to prevent Beatty from turning tail the moment he spotted the main fleet, Hipper could adjust his deployment on the fly, having the main forces appear in waves and from multiple directions.
The first wave could not boast overwhelming firepower. It was best if they disguised themselves as a support fleet originally meant to bombard Bergen and cover the Swedish mercenaries' amphibious assault. This would give Beatty a glimmer of hope that he could smash through them and continue his hunt for Hipper.
Once the fighting began and both sides took damage, their speed would inevitably drop. As long as Beatty's speed fell, he would not be able to escape when the true Demanian main fleet finally revealed itself.
There was only one massive cost to this plan: the Lutzow, its speed crippled and serving as bait, was highly likely to be ganged up on and sacrificed first.
But this sacrifice was worth it! Its loss would shift the entire paradigm of the pursuit, transforming the battle from "Hipper breaking through Beatty's blockade" into "Beatty breaking through the bombardment fleet outside Bergen to continue chasing Hipper's remaining battlecruisers."
Not long after Hipper's four battlecruisers parted ways with Bernhardt's Lutzow, dusk began to fall. However, because both sides were still close to the Arctic Circle, the sun stubbornly refused to set.
Hipper tore southwest at full speed, hugging the Norwegian fjord coastline. This route was inherently dangerous, as passing Norwegian merchant ships could easily spot and expose them.
But since the Norwegian campaign had been raging for two days, Demanian warships were already prowling several southern ports. The coastal merchant vessels had been thoroughly frightened away, allowing Hipper to steam south without being detected by a single civilian ship.
This, too, fell perfectly within Lelouch's calculations. By simultaneously launching the Norwegian offensive and ambushing the Lusha ambassador to bait the Royal Navy, they minimized variables and filtered out external interference as much as possible.
After Hipper sailed for several hours, the hour grew late and their latitude shifted further south. The sky finally plunged into pitch black. The cover of night granted him greater security, and to their surprise, the night passed without incident.
Occasionally, small enemy light cruisers and destroyers passed by on patrol. Whenever they did, Hipper relied on his vanguard of high-speed light cruisers to sweep the path, intercepting and driving them off to ensure the enemy scouts never laid eyes on the battlecruisers.
As a result, even if Britannia ships detected naval activity in the area, the ongoing Norwegian campaign would warp their perspective. As long as no 11-inch or larger main guns were fired, and the skirmishes were limited to torpedoes and sub-150mm light cruiser guns, Beatty was likely to misjudge the situation, assuming it was just a few Demanian light scouting vessels.
After all, Beatty was already heavily biased by preconceived notions, having received the Lutzow's encrypted telegram coordinates.
But the final move that completely duped Beatty came close to midnight. Captain Bernhardt actually sailed the Lutzow to within a dozen nautical miles of Norway's Trondheim port. Then, lingering just outside Norway's 12-nautical-mile territorial waters, he unleashed a barrage of 305mm high-explosive shells directly at the port!
Immediately afterward, he ordered the accompanying light cruiser Coln to lower its small boats, feigning an amphibious assault, before pretending to be repelled by the shore defenses' counter-fire.
Strictly speaking, this was a blatant violation of international law and neutrality. To date, Demania had not formally declared war on Norway. It was merely retired Demanian troops, hired by a mercenary company, fighting on behalf of Sweden.
Demanian naval warships, however, had not been decommissioned, nor had they been sold to Swedish mercenaries. How could they justify firing on a Norwegian port? Originally, these warships were restricted to escort duties—safely delivering the mercenary transport convoys to Norwegian ports and covering their landing. Bombarding the shore, strictly speaking, required other legally sanctioned units.
But desperate times called for desperate measures. The situation was dire, and shrouded in darkness, there were no witnesses. To ensure his scheme succeeded and the main fleet was covered, Captain Bernhardt took it upon himself to order the bombardment.
He did not plan on making it back alive anyway. Death would wipe the slate clean. Whatever punishment his superiors doled out—whether they branded it a personal act of insubordination or anything else—it no longer mattered.
And so, at the stroke of midnight, 305mm high-explosive shells rained down on Trondheim's port district. The blasts pulverized several barracks, dock facilities, and supply warehouses. On shore, the panicked Norwegian garrison immediately scattered like birds and beasts.
Naturally, this news was instantly relayed by the pro-Britannia Norwegian military to the Admiralty in London, and then directly to Beatty. This conclusively cemented the Lutzow's final coordinates.
If the Lutzow was not at Trondheim, where else would the Demanians get 305mm naval guns to bombard the harbor? And the only reason it was shelling the port and attempting a landing was because it knew it could not escape and was trying to offload its crucial captives!
David Beatty, his nerves too frayed to think calmly, charged headlong straight at Bernhardt, completely missing Hipper.
July 3rd, 3:00 AM.
In the coastal waters southwest of the high-latitude Trondheim port, the sky was already bright.
That was just how ports near the Arctic Circle worked. In the peak of summer in early July, even without 24 hours of continuous midnight sun, true darkness only lasted three or four hours. The remaining twenty hours were broad daylight.
David Beatty, leading his six battlecruisers and an escorting force of eight light cruisers and fourteen destroyers, sailed majestically into these waters. Unsurprisingly, they successfully intercepted the battlecruiser Lutzow.
—
"Flash the light signals first. Send an unencrypted telegram demanding their surrender. Tell them to hand over Ambassador Benckendorff, and we will spare their lives and repatriate them without their ship."
Because of Ambassador Benckendorff, Beatty clung to a sliver of hope and tried to follow standard surrender protocols. Once they surrendered, the warship would definitely be confiscated, but the sailors could be sent home via Norway or Sweden instead of rotting in a POW camp. It was a remarkably lenient concession.
But the only answer he received was the roaring counter-fire of the Lutzow's 305mm main guns.
"Spit in my face when I show you mercy, will you?! Sink them!" Furious, David Beatty immediately ordered a righteous six-on-one assault.
The six Britannia battlecruisers, armed with everything from 12-inch to 13.5-inch guns, began their test firing from twenty kilometers away, calibrating their targeting parameters.
Not daring to act arrogant, the Lutzow immediately hooked southeast, diving into a nearby coastal fjord.
Beatty frantically gave chase, leveraging his speed advantage to close the distance, but the enemy had already vanished inside.
The fjord was far too narrow to deploy a battle line of six warships. The Britannia battlecruisers were forced to fire from a distance outside the mouth of the fjord. But as the Lutzow fled deeper in, several Britannia ships lost their line of sight. Only the two directly facing the entrance could still fire; the remaining four found their sights blocked by the mountains flanking the fjord.
The Lutzow barreled wildly into the depths of the fjord, completely fearless of striking hidden reefs and grounding the warship.
Perhaps it was because the Lutzow never intended to survive, rendering its crew utterly fearless. Or perhaps it was because Captain Bernhardt had spent hours the previous night meticulously scouting this battlefield, specifically choosing this advantageous terrain as his graveyard.
Before making his choice, Bernhardt had exhaustively studied the maps. He even sailed the warship into the fjord beforehand, dropping plumb lines to carefully measure the channel's draft. Only after making such thorough preparations did he claim this treasured spot as his final resting place.
Beatty, on the other hand, had arrived in a frantic rush. Unfamiliar with the local hydrology and geography, he naturally suffered the disadvantages of fighting on away turf.
Thwarted by the fjord, his six-on-one advantage dwindled into a two-on-one or even one-on-one bout. Unable to leverage his numbers, Beatty could only position the excess battlecruisers behind his frontline ships. They resorted to long-range, high-arc plunging fire, shooting shells over the heads of their allies in a desperate bid to blast the Lutzow hiding within.
But this high-arc plunging fire obviously suffered from abysmal accuracy. Worse still, it was nearly impossible to rangefind and calibrate, as the line of sight for the warships' observation towers and rangefinders was blocked by the friendly vessels ahead of them.
The water spouts from the impacts of identical shells could also interfere with targeting identification—unlike the later eras of the Earth timeline, this age did not possess Japanese dye shells that color-coded rounds from different warships. After a fierce forty-minute gunnery duel, the Lutzow took a solid seven or eight hits, suffering heavy damage.
However, the Lion—the vanguard battlecruiser of Beatty's formation and his flagship—had also taken three hits.
Just as it had during the Battle of Jutland in the Earth timeline, one of those shells crippled the Lion's number two turret—the superfiring turret mounted on the bow.
Major Harvey, the deputy gunnery officer and sole survivor inside the turret, urgently ordered the magazine beneath the blown-open turret to be flooded, narrowly averting a catastrophic explosion.
Losing a turret on the Lion left Beatty flushed with fury. Six against one, and they still took return damage? When would this inefficient slugfest ever end?
Fortunately, he had sensible men at his side. The fleet's torpedo officer finally proposed, "Commander, why don't we send the destroyers or light cruisers forward for a long-range torpedo strike? We don't need to close in for a high-speed, short-range attack. Just set them to the slowest speed and fire from a distance! This guarantees the safety of our torpedo boats. The enemy sealed their own doom by retreating into a narrow fjord—they don't have the space to evade! If they try, they'll ram the mountains!"
David Beatty's eyes lit up. He was right! In his panic, he had been grasping at straws. The enemy was trapped in a claustrophobic fjord—why bother with an artillery duel? Just pepper them with torpedoes! Let's see you dodge that!
He instantly ordered the three light cruisers with the largest torpedo payloads to sail in a sweeping arc toward the mouth of the fjord, unleashing their entire arsenal into the channel at a narrow angle.
A full twenty-four torpedoes surged toward the Lutzow in a tight six-degree spread! Though their speed had been dialed down to 27 knots, far less threatening than high-speed 40-knot torpedoes, there was simply nowhere for the Lutzow to dodge in such confined waters!
But just minutes later, Beatty was utterly disappointed.
To his absolute shock, the Lutzow shrank back! It nestled directly into the mountainside hugging the fjord!
He hastily snatched up a nautical chart, scrutinizing it carefully. Only then did he realize this was an L-shaped fjord with a sharp bend inside!
Though it was not a perfect 90-degree right angle, bending instead into a curved obtuse angle, the mere presence of receding space allowed the Lutzow to temporarily slip away and evade the torpedo volley.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Minutes later, a chain of muffled explosions echoed out. All twenty-four Britannia torpedoes had slammed into the rock walls, completely missing their mark.
Fuming with rage but unwilling to delay any further, Beatty ordered the battlecruisers to maintain a suppressing barrage on the bend's exit—if the Lutzow dared to poke its head out, it would be blasted. Simultaneously, he dispatched two high-speed destroyers deep into the fjord, intending for them to round the bend and unleash their torpedoes from point-blank range.
As a result, barely a few kilometers into the fjord, the Lutzow suddenly threw itself into reverse and flashed into view. All its secondary batteries opened fire on the torpedo boats, obliterating the two destroyers in under two minutes.
Even though Beatty had been suppressing the bend with heavy artillery—and the Lutzow had eaten two more 13.5-inch armor-piercing shells while sinking the destroyers—the dreadnought clearly was not going down that easily.
If an omniscient spectator were watching this unfold, their minds might instantly jump to that scene in the Jackie Lui adaptation of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer—where the orthodox sects hunted down Xiang Wentian and Linghu Chong, only for Xiang to feign injury, lure his greedy pursuers into a maze, and slaughter them all.
Watching two more destroyers throw their lives away for nothing completely broke Beatty's patience. He instantly ordered a battlecruiser into the fjord, guns primed and ready to fire, intending to end this with a point-blank heavyweight slugfest.
Meanwhile, due to the cramped terrain, the remaining battlecruisers that could not fit inside locked their long-range sights on the L-bend's coordinates. If the Lutzow dared to show itself again, it would be met with concentrated fire!
Consequently, the Queen Mary, which had escaped unscathed thus far, was selected to execute this close-quarters extermination.
"Don't worry! The Lutzow has taken at least ten 305mm or larger armor-piercing shells, not to mention that torpedo from earlier! Even in a one-on-one, you have nothing to fear!"
After all, in a restricted combat scenario where they were forced into a one-on-one duel, raw individual ship superiority was paramount. If they sent in an Invincible-class or an Indefatigable-class, they would only be fielding 12-inch guns, lacking the overwhelming burst damage needed.
Therefore, they absolutely had to send a Lion-class armed with 13.5-inch guns to handle the duel, aiming for maximum damage output in the shortest possible time.
Reckless and headstrong, David Beatty initially considered sending the Lion itself. However, the Lion had already absorbed three hits, losing one of its forward main turrets in the process.
In this kind of deep-fjord combat environment, crippled forward firepower was far too dangerous. This left the Queen Mary, a ship of the same class in pristine condition, as the only choice.
The other allied ships would provide the Queen Mary with covering fire.
This time, the Lutzow truly did not dare to show itself, hiding deep within the fjord and allowing the Queen Mary to sail right up to the bend.
But the absolute instant the Queen Mary peeked around the corner, the Lutzow—having already positioned its hull and dialed in its firing angles—struck first.
The stretch of water past the bend was incredibly short, barely a few kilometers long, making the engagement distance terrifyingly intimate. The two battlecruisers were virtually trading blows point-blank at a range of five to six kilometers.
At this distance, the retained velocity of the armor-piercing shells guaranteed that both ships would effortlessly penetrate each other's main armor belts, with absurdly high accuracy to boot.
Furthermore, these older battlecruisers still had torpedo tubes installed. Though limited in number—each could only fire two torpedoes in a single direction—this engagement range and the complete lack of evasive terrain guaranteed they could unleash them at one another.
Before rounding the bend, the captain of the Queen Mary had even considered a tactic: if the enemy refused to show themselves, he would fire his torpedoes the moment he entered the turn, then immediately reverse out to dodge any return fire.
After all, the Queen Mary still had an avenue of retreat, while the Lutzow had backed itself into the absolute bottom of the fjord, leaving it nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
As a result, when the fighting broke out and the Lutzow seized the initiative with its guns, the situation completely derailed from the Queen Mary's captain's expectations.
A hailstorm of Demanian 305mm armor-piercing shells savagely pounded the Queen Mary's newly exposed bow and forward main turret, inflicting catastrophic damage instantly.
Retreating now would only lead to worse casualties. Gritting his teeth, the captain of the Queen Mary pushed forward, launching his torpedoes before digging in for a stationary shootout.
Four torpedoes crossed paths in the water while armor-piercing shells clouded the sky. In a mere three minutes, both warships absorbed at least another ten large-caliber shells each!
Watching the Demanian torpedoes close in, the Queen Mary desperately tried to throw itself into reverse to evade.
But before it could dodge, a 305mm shell from the Lutzow tore through the already compromised side wall of the Queen Mary's forward turret ammunition hoist. The ensuing fire rapidly spread, detonating seventy tons of propellant charges. In a blinding flash, the Queen Mary's forward superfiring turret was blasted clean off its mount and into the sky.
The earth-shattering explosion dealt fatal structural damage to the Queen Mary, completely disabling its engines. As it sat paralyzed, the two Demanian torpedoes closed the distance, one of them slamming directly into its bow.
However, the Lutzow opposite it was in equally abysmal shape. Having weathered over a dozen large-caliber shells before this duel, it had just eaten over a dozen more—all of which had penetrated. The flooding and loss of firepower were absolutely staggering.
Fortunately, Demanian warships boasted superior safety protocols and dispersed ammunition storage. Even with its turrets pierced, only a few armor-piercing shells and a few hundred kilograms of propellant detonated, sparing the vessel from instantaneous destruction.
But the Lutzow had now completely lost all propulsion. Watching the two point-blank torpedoes fired by the Queen Mary just before its demise, it had neither the power nor the space to evade, forced to swallow both impacts head-on.
Two massive geysers erupted into the sky, allowing a torrent of seawater to violently surge in. Eight of its seventeen watertight compartments were entirely flooded. Coupled with the bow and stern, which had long since been ruptured, the cumulative water intake exceeded ten thousand tons.
The hull began to sink rapidly. The turbines and generators had ground to a complete halt.
The ship's lights flickered out. Every facility relying on the generators went dead, and all hydraulic power was lost.
Only the equipment wired to the final set of battery banks remained operational, buying them a few precious minutes before the ship went under for good.
Captain Bernhardt issued the order to abandon ship. "Everyone except the telegraph crew, abandon ship! Telegraph crew, send one last unencrypted message for me. Tell the Britannians they've been played.
"The Lusha Ambassador, Count Benckendorff, was transferred to the Hindenburg a long time ago. The Hindenburg simply didn't show itself during the interception of the Danae, so we beat them at their own game!"
The telegraph crew showed no fear. As the warship sank around them, they remained alongside their captain in the conning tower, using the batteries' last vestiges of power to broadcast this low-power, shortwave unencrypted telegram.
Aboard the Lion, David Beatty naturally received it immediately. When his signals officer handed him the intercepted transcript, Beatty's face darkened instantly.
He barely had time to mourn the Queen Mary's mutual destruction before being plunged into an even worse nightmare.
Fuck! We fell for a trap! It's a trap within a trap!
And that six-on-one just now—sure, they wiped out the enemy, but the bastard managed to counter-kill one of theirs right before dying. Did they even know how to fight a war?!
And that wasn't even counting the two peon destroyers that got instantly deleted trying to scout and lay torpedoes.
The losses were astronomical.
What now?
Beatty had no choice. Swallowing his boundless fury, he left behind a single light cruiser and a handful of destroyers to sweep the battlefield. Their orders were to fish out the surviving crew of the Queen Mary (if there were any left) and recover the survivors from the Lutzow. They were to interrogate the Demanians relentlessly to confirm if the key figures truly had been transferred to another battlecruiser, and whether the Lutzow had originally been operating alongside other capital ships.
Extracting this kind of information was incredibly easy. By simply isolating the captured prisoners for interrogation, the stories would eventually line up. There was no way ordinary sailors had undergone professional counter-interrogation training.
However, David Beatty himself had no time to sit around and wait for the recovery and interrogation results.
Some things were better believed than ignored. Right now, all he could do was take his remaining five battlecruisers and fiercely pursue the suspected Hipper battlecruiser fleet southwest along the Norwegian coast. Meanwhile, the auxiliary vessels left behind were ordered to radio him the instant they had results. That way, Beatty would know if he was chasing a ghost.
The Britannia battlecruiser fleet tore forward at maximum speed. Three hours into their voyage, Beatty received the telegram from the salvage ships he had left behind, exactly as expected.
"Commander! It's confirmed! Our men isolated and interrogated the Lutzow survivors we pulled from the water. They all stated that just before dark last night—a few hours after the Lutzow took a torpedo and wiped out our escort fleet—another Demanian battlecruiser arrived to pick up the transferred personnel via small boats.
They also said that some reserve sailors and non-combatants were taken aboard as well. The Lutzow had long since accepted that its crippled speed would prevent it from returning home, and they were fully prepared to fight to the death."
Beatty listened, utterly dumbfounded.
"This is terrifying... Just how massive is this scheme? Is there an even greater conspiracy at play?"
Even the historically reckless and headstrong Beatty felt a chilling wind blowing from the deepest abysses of Tartarus, sending shivers straight down his spine.
But the enemy would not give him any more time to think.
He had already adjusted his sights and furiously chased the potential Hipper battlecruiser fleet for hours. Right at this very moment, on the afternoon of July 3rd, while he wallowed in hesitation and inner dread, the silhouette of a Demanian battlecruiser materialized ahead, flanked by several Demanian screen ships.
"Report! Our vanguard light cruiser, the Castor, has spotted an enemy battlecruiser, suspected to be the Hindenburg!"
Learning that he had finally caught up to his prey, Beatty's spirits soared once more.
To hell with it! The enemy was right in front of him. Kill them first and ask questions later!
"Pursue at full speed!"
