@boz
OOC: I’ll reply to myself as I continue this as it was meant to be the “meanwhile at of the other story”
* Sharp rush to the engine room to fight the fire in the compartment’s machines and arrived before the robots fireteam. The fuel module was spewing out inflammable liquid around in the room and spread the fire to the other components. Once heated even the other steel pieces of the engine begun being prone to break under the force exerted on them by the still spinning driveshaft was putting on them, bending rods and dislocation gears which teeth broke once out of place. Sharp had to clear the little fire spots on his way to not burn himself as he was going to the fuel storage. On the other side of the compartment the robot fireteam had an easier time getting there walking through fire with the metallic body as if there was nothing. *
Sharp: Protect the fuel, if its storage burn this whole compartment is lost!
* The robot fireteam covered the fuel storage as Sharp extinguished the fire on the engine but the damage was done, that engine ain’t gonna work again anytime some without extensive repair. The fuel was saved, but the oil in the machinery itself caught fire and the repairing of all this is gonna take time if even possible. Upon realizing this, Sharp keep running to the command room. *
* Meanwhile between Irma’s breakdown and the water entering the room from the door Mina also hand her hands full. Irma in her panic attack rushed to close the door, but doing so could leave them both trapped in a room in an otherwise flooded compartment. *
Irma: Let me shut that door!
Mina: No. We must work to save the compartment or we won’t make it. We might even sink below the maximum pressure this sub can handle if it is flooded.
* Irma pushed the cabin door with a desperate strength far beyond what she’s normally capable of, but even that was not enough to offset the species difference that gave the advantage to Mina in any brute force contest. *
Mina: * She grab her and pin her against a wall. * Calm yourself Irma. Fear won’t save us. We must fight back this flood not hide from it. For our own sake. I know this must be absolute terror for you but you can’t let it have power on you, not after you struggled to not let Sharp or the gryphon royalty do for so long.
Irma: … Yes. I, I fought for my cause, I… I’ll fight for our live.
* This speech seemed to have some effect on her and while she was still visibly shaken Irma was now more functional to help. *
Mina: We must go close the leak. I know where they left the tools, take a wielding torch and I’ll hold the piece in place.
Irma: Ok. * They run to grab repair tools and followed the current to find the biggest leaks first a brace of metal had bent inward letter water flow in. Mina used her minotaur strength to hammer the piece back in place reducing the leak already and making the pieces close enough for Irma to wield it back to the rest of the hull. They repeated that process on two other breaches and completed the more urgent repair just in time for Irma to only have water up to shoulders level, which is not too bad considering she’s a gryphon and doesn’t walk on her back legs only like Mina. *
Mina: Finally. Now the pumps should be able to clear this water. You can finish your breakdown now if you want.
Irma: No, it’s fine. I found back my courage doing repairs with you. Thank you.
Commander bot: The command room is back to fully operational. I’ve dispatched the repair team to the engine.
Sharp: The engine ain’t gonna roll again any time soon. We’re sitting duck for now, we need something else to get out of the mess before they hit us again.
Commander bot: We should most likely retaliate, I calculated the trajectory for our back rear torpedoes already, I estimated we have over 75% probability of sinking our enemy.
Sharp: That would only make us a sitting duck that can fire back. They’ll call backup and we won’t have repaired fast enough to not be killed by their second ship. Also, any hint on how they found us.
Commander bot: The most logical theory is that they used a sensor for magnetic signature in the water instead of a sonar as we thought. They detected our metal.
Sharp: Can they confirm if we’re dead or alive with such a device.
Commander bot: Unlikely. They know a big metallic object is down there but not much beyond its shape and speed. They have no reason to believe we’ve been killed by their first strike though so they will drop another series of charge.
Sharp: What if instead of firing back we make our ammo explode at the closest distance behind us and deploy decoys and others counter measures? To make it looks like our ammo or fuel supply exploded and spread as much metal as we can around.
Commander bot: Interesting idea. I’m not familiar enough with organic’s psychology to know how the gryphons in charge of the vessels above us will react.
Sharp: They have generally low motivation in the gryphon royal navy, I’m sure they’ll cut corners and not zealously grenade us more than they believe is needed. Beside without a functional engine we won’t move so we’ll look really dead to them for at least a day and a half.
Commander bot: I’ll trust your judgement of their psychology. * Take intercom. * Rear weapons. set timer to minimum and fire at 0 degree straight back deploy all counter measure with maximum distance.
Sharp: And now we hope this all goes better than our first simply sneaking by idea… I’ll go see the girls to tell them the next explosive is a fake.
* The submarine is shaken once more as their explosive deception detonate near them. Then they all went silent again despite not actually believing the gryphon used sonars anymore to anxiously wait for the depth charges that might come next. *
* Further back in the ship as the decoy explosion happened Irma had her last jumpscare of this battle jumping out of the water in the flooded cabin an onto her bed making her a least stand on a dry surface. *
Irma: * Shaking… *
Sharp: * Reaching them. * Don’t worry Irma, that explosion is only a ploy I thought about to play dead. Nothing else is going to happen to us ~hopefully~.
* Irma just feel the most positive emotion she ever felt for Sharp in her life, she only managed to refrain from hugging him at the last second as reason kicked back in. *
Sharp: And great job fixing those breach you two.
Mina: Irma helped.
Sharp: I’m already glad I brought you two with me on this mission. Let’s go back to the command room to see how it goes next from there. No point in waiting here and you’ll have your paws hooves and claws on dry floor there.
* They all went to the command room to wait and see if the gryphon fleet had really gave up the chase. 5 minutes passed. 10 minutes passed. There was only 3 organic being on board but the recent rush and the current nervousness was enough to make the air smell sweaty along with the engine fire fumes. 15 minutes, 30 minutes…
Commander bot: I think we’re safe for now sir.
* A general feels of relief filled the 3 people in the submarine as they sat down in the command room to recover from their emotions. *
Sharp: Let the robots repair team work on the engine and nothing else for now. Keep an eye on our own sensor to see any activity above us.
Commander bot: * nod. *
* Around half a day passed as they reparation were going well and still no signs of more gryphon activity above them when suddenly the sensor screen turn all inactive. *
Commander bot: The sensors stopped working.
Sharp: Had they been damaged?
Commander bot: No, they weren’t among the damage in the command room during the battle, we only loss the mechanic to extend the periscope and the intercom service which was fixed quickly. Something is messing with them. Perhaps a natural phenomenon we heard about such thing happen to the space people around the most massive solar flare. We are likely in no danger even more it would be a miraculous opportunity for us to flee undetected while everyone sensor are inoperable if this event last long enough.
Mina: Do you think there’s something to see from this?
Commander bot: An aurora in the sky perhaps, nothing at this depth, and with the periscope light enhancement underwater the image we get isn’t natural.
* Mina put her face into the periscope anyway. *
Mina: Hey, I see something! * She said a bit loudly compared to the general quietness they try to keep just in case. *
Sharp: Lower please Mina. What is it, a glow on the surface.
Mina; No, I’m serious, something important. We’re not alone underwater. I see another vehicle, with some sort of strange huge antenna structure on it.
Sharp: So the sensor disturbance we’re experiencing is not natural after all. * He takes a look himself followed by the commander bot. *
Commander bot: They don’t even seem to bother with anything to be more stealthy.
Sharp: That’s an amazing discovery we’ve just made here thank to you Mina. It mean there’s another group who have a way to blind the gryphon fleet and use it. If we had that to stealth our weapons we could crush them, it would practically be a one sided fight. We must capture this device.
Commander bot: That will be for another time, we are currently still stopped.
Sharp: Crap. Anyway, it’s not like we could have captured it while it’s not even surfaced. Keep focusing on the repair. Once we’ll be safe on the island we’ll see what interest them there and set up a trap. And once those repair will be ready, let’s wait for them to make the trip back, so we’ll sail under their shared cloak.
Commander bot: That’s the plan to escape the blockade fleet I was about to suggest too.
* It took another 5 days for the mysterious other sub with the cloaking device to cross the blockage again. But this time Sharp submarine was ready to grab the opportunity. A gryphon navy ship was almost right above them as they started back their engine for the first time in nearly a week, but as expected it was completely blinded and no attack came as they sailed away toward the nearest military harbor of Robotpony’s empire on the island. *