"Sir our scouts have returned with a report, they have found the shore!" This verbal message was directed to Maser, who was leaning languidly against the wall.
"Understood, proceed as planned." The officer nodded and walked away, leaving Maser alone with his thoughts. 'Menos I beg you, no I beg you to let that cunt stay out of this battle, and how.... I don't know, you're a god, so think of something, I've got to go.'
Finishing his monologue, he left the cabin and stood on the bridge looking at the small distant lights that flickered like forest fireflies.
"I don't see their fleet, it's strange." Alan said, leaning against the side of the ship. A left-wing observer might say that the young man didn't care about anything, but he didn't.
"I have nothing to answer you, maybe they hid it, took it to another place, sank it, or they don't have it at all." The latter seemed highly unlikely to Maser, but he mentioned it jokingly.
"Drop anchor." Alan shouted, and seeing that the sailors had gone wrong again, rushed towards them.
"All right, I need to get some sleep tonight... what?" Maser's attention was attracted by a loud whistling sound, the man guessed in his heart what nature it was and who exactly made it, but he didn't want to believe it till the last. Turning around, he raised his head to the sky, a small bright red star was blooming in the distance - a signal to attack.
"Aah, Menos, I told you!" The man was filled with anger, he suspected that the prince would try to kill them as soon as possible, but he had no idea it would be this bad.
"Maser, what do we do?" From behind his broad back came Alan's questions, but the man didn't care about them he was actively thinking. 'What to do, right: ignoring isn't an option, sending a rebuttal signal isn't, that would make it worse, start confusion and fuck knows what else, that leaves.'
The man realised he didn't have many options to attack, and given that the sun had set over the horizon they had light for about half an hour, an hour tops.
"Alan, pick up the anchor and go on the left flank of the vanguard, get everyone up, it's started." The kid with the confused face nodded silently and vanished in the direction of the hold.
"Well, let's go!" With tired hope in his voice said Maser and actively looked at the vague outlines of the coastal city.
The central naval group began to seize the coast, lined up in a sort of formation: in front went frigates - a formidable force to be reckoned with, on the left edge of the formation moved 'Red Sandstone', in the centre was he - 'Warrior' surrounded by brigs, schooners and lugers, which against his background seemed more like ants than ships. In the rear were landing and other non-combatant vessels.
The vanguard moved forward, and having ascertained that there was no resistance, fired a green flare upwards. The landing craft, having received the signal, rushed forward, struggling to get through the small vessels of the second line. Which slowed down the attack.
"Bitch, who came up with this stupid formation?" Maser wheezed angrily, watching the transport ship's clumsy attempt to miss the luger.
"Um, sir, you did." Alan said somewhat frustratedly, squinting warily at his superior.
"Yes? Yes, but I expected some resistance." The captain waved his hand, warding off bad thoughts and sarcastic glances from his subordinates.
The wave of transports kept moving, and given their number, they could not stretch into a long sausage. This sausage went slowly and monotonously, and when the first ship almost reached the shore it was only tens of metres away.
Shooh, shooh, shooh. - The loud whistling sound spread rapidly throughout the bay, and with every second it grew louder and louder, and seemed to come from everywhere.
The next seconds were like in slow motion, hundreds of barely visible traces of thousands of sparks appeared in the sky, every soldier, sailor, officer of the army stood as if mesmerised and gazed into the barely light sky.
Bam! A powerful explosion lit up the whole bay, a bright blinding light. It was a shell - no, a missile - that hit the centre of the deck of one of the transport bark, turning it into a pile of splinters in the blink of an eye.
And the men continued to stand there, as if unable to believe that such a thing could really happen. And the whistling in the air only gained momentum and grew stronger with each passing second.
"Air!" Maser shouted with all his might, he was an experienced military man, but this was the first time he had seen such a weapon, quickly bringing everyone to their senses with a selective mate, the man shouted with all his might.
"Watchman, where's the fire coming from?" Bang, Maser instinctively ducked, a missile flew into the sails of the neighbouring frigate, blowing away all three masts as if they didn't exist.
"Captain!" Alan was yelling, and Maser grabbed him by the throat, hoping to shut him up, his attention focused on the sentry.
"They're firing from closed positions, half a kilometre from here, inside and outside the city walls, northeast and northwest."
"Deploy the bombers!" Shouted Maser, and the locals were just getting into the swing of things. Then he grabbed two lanterns and rushed to the rear bridge of the frigate. The accuracy of the shots, and most importantly the number of missiles was increasing by the minute. Most of them naturally fell into the ocean waters without causing any harm, but even that small part, which reached its target, simply sizzled wooden vessels, leaving them no chance.
In less than five minutes of the invasion fleet's thrashing, Haro's defenders managed to sink three ships and severely damage four more, considering that the central invasion fleet consisted of forty ships, the damage was quite tangible.
The landing ships were the most hit, they were the closest to the shore, and were subjected to the most brutal fire, not only by large missiles, but also by a swarm of small ones - a metre, a metre and a half long.
These did not tear down, leaving only a smoking hulk, but they also exploded loudly in a blinding flash, which immediately led to the most terrible thing on board - fire.
The invasion fleet, of course, tried to respond with frigates as the most manoeuvrable of the vanguard turned around and gave a full salvo towards the city. But it was little more than useless, the shells crushed the already empty city, tearing it literally into splinters.
The artillery teams of the defenders were well protected by the scattering of buildings and terrain as they were firing on an overhead trajectory.
The last rays of the sun had already retracted, but the darkness had no intention of taking its rightful place. The whole bay was lit up with burning ships, illuminating everything around for dozens of metres.
'Warrior' as the largest and most powerful ship, was going to turn around, everyone understood if this machine will give a full onboard volley from the city will be one smoking memory.
But there was one little snag in this marvellous plan, namely their transport ships, which were already at full speed rushing back to the rear, their captains and crews had no illusions about their sad situation. They marched back to the rear overtaking their own squealing and each other.
The ships were in turmoil and disorder, the sailors and the landing party were panic-stricken, the whole bay was filled with cries of pain and despair, the captains tried to quell the disorder, but all their efforts were a drop of reason in a sea of madness, the waters of which had opened up beneath them.
The harbour itself was quite wide, but the part of the water that came directly in contact with the shore was noticeably narrower, as if not designed for such heavy shipping and such large ships.
Bahh,' the fleet fired the first mortar salvo, black cannonballs bursting out of the thick-walled short cannons and flying off into the distance. At Maser's satisfied look, he waved his lanterns tirelessly, signalling to the others to fire the mortars.
The man had regretted a hundred times that he had not installed at least a small mortar on the bow of his ship. It was a possibility, and now he remembered the expressions of that ship craftsman who had wanted to sell him one for cheap.
'Slow, unreliable, and inaccurate, I wan't buy such shit even for nothing.' Those were the words that had been said to the old shipwright, and now Maser was regretting his decision.
'Bam.' A small rocket ripped through the smoky air and hit the front mast of the Bloody Sandstone. The fireball bloomed in the blink of an eye and immediately extinguished, literally tearing out splinters and wooden planks that mowed down the crew as well as shrapnel.
The shockwave swept through the ship, rocking it badly, most of the crew couldn't stay on their feet, falling like sacks of horse dung, hitting the deck, and Maser was no exception.
Swearing like a cobbler the captain rose to his feet, and squinting his eyes at the bright flames of the burning fore-sail, turned to the lookout.
BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM... - The rumble of shots was like a hundred thunderclaps, penetrating everything around, from the water to the sky, Maser didn't turn round, he knew perfectly well that only one ship could make such a sound - the 'Warrior'.
While he was aiming his mortars, the flagship, puffing with its accelerated steam engines, finished its turn, waited until the landing barques were out of the line of fire, and then, with its side to the shore, fired a salvo. There were not so many guns on it, but each was of monstrous calibre, the cannonballs of half a hundred kilograms each flew into the city, cutting down the buildings one by one like a farmer cuts the grass with a scythe in the morning.
For a few minutes there was a strange lull on the battlefield, the flagship's salvo apparently frustrating the Haro defenders as much as their by the Webian Trade Campaign's soldiers.
Taking advantage of the lull, Maser pondered, 'It's all too easy, just a minute.' The man, ignoring the questioning looks of his subordinates climbed up the mast, in his time he had learnt it as well as anyone.
Climbing to the top, he took out a small telescope, and looked at the edge of the left bank of the bay. After looking through the night darkness, he took a step back with shaking hands, almost falling out of the observer's basket.
Through the lens of the tube he observed a group of strange-looking ships, and they were sailing at full steam in their direction.