There was nothing else that they could do. The heavy cruisers of the Occitanian fleet were too fast for his ship to catch up. Notably, Jack did look over to see the Destiny quickly overtaking his ship, but the both of them would be useless in the fog bank.
Jack gave the order to fire one more time just before the second ship disappeared into the bank. The shells exploded well short of the stern and soon enough the Occitanians were gone.
"Fuck!" Jack took his binoculars and threw them across the bridge.
No one on the bridge said anything else. An eerie quiet descended on the commanding officers as their prey escaped out into open waters.
Finally after several moments, Luke spoke up. "Jack, it's no use going into the fog. Let's go back to the harbor and help them with the devastation. They are going to have a need for able-bodied personnel right now."
Jack hated to break off the chase but he knew Luke was right. It would be useless trying to continue to fight now when they'd be needed back at base. With a gentle nod to Luke, his deputy began to issue orders to the other officers to turn the ship back to port.
Soon the giant rudder swung to the side and the ship began to turn. To his side, Jack watched as the Destiny seemed to follow his lead, beginning to return as well.
Guess I'll have to see if this Wainwright can fight another day, thought Jack.
Sailing back into port was a shocking experience. Once clear of the jetty, Jack began to survey the destruction wrought by the two enemy cruisers.
Out in the water, it wasn't so bad. The only fire seemed to be coming from a small patrol boat that had taken an unlucky hit in the stern and capsized completely. A portion of the crew were still standing on the hull awaiting rescue as other boats raced to help them.
The rest of the base was in much worse shape. Flames still danced around the town marking the victims of the enemy guns. The barracks building itself was blown all to hell, the hole in the backdrop of the town where it used to stand particularly telling.
Sailors and soldiers rushed about putting out the various blazes as men and women limped along to the naval hospital.
As they slipped into their berth, Jack even spotted a portion of the dock that had taken a direct hit. A giant crater interrupted the smooth, wooden planks and several men unlucky enough to have been in that vicinity were still lying where they fell.
Even Jack had to turn away at the sight of one man who was missing the entire lower half of his body. Based upon how close he was to the crater, it wasn't hard to put together how it happened.
The next two hours were spent in chaos. What was left of the crew raced off to help with the fires. While several of the buildings that were burning uncontrollably were consigned as being lost, they were able to save a majority of them.
The worst was dealing with the causalities inside. No one ever got used to seeing a charred body.
Especially bodies belonging to Jack's crew.
"Jack, you got to see this." Luke waved over a man with a stretcher, covered by a blood-stained blanket. Upon reaching Jack, Luke then gently lifted part of the blanket. Underneath was his engineering division head, Victor Star. Half his body was charred from the flames.
"Fuck, not Victor," said Jack. Feeling the tears sting his eyes at the quiet engineer who had so faithfully served, Jack didn't have long to grieve.
The victims were just too many. Those that could be helped made their way to the hospital. Those who were already gone were piled wherever there was space.