The adventures of the young engineer and Prinz Eugen Volume 2.

No.7 Chapter 3

Prinz Eugen rode through the waves of the mild South China Sea. She was happy with her current situation. She not only managed to make good about 12 hours travel time during the last 46 hours of her journey but she also managed to outrun and outmaneuver her followers. Since she had passed Point Marianne she had been shadowed by either a group of destroyers or a pair of cruisers of the royal navy or their southern allies, next to the odd aircraft. But since she passed Jakarta and executed a series of three sharp turns with time pauses of two to three hours in between. First west, southwest and then northeast hooks. With that done she had no longer seen nor detected any ships or aircraft that followed her. Since her last course correction back to her planned route, she had passed Palawan and entered the South China Sea. She planned to pass along the eastern coast of Luzon and to meet up with her Sakuran escort south of Formosa. During her journey through the Atlantic and Indian Ocean she had plenty of time to learn what the young engineer had been up to since the two parted ways. Apparently he had transferred to Forschungsabteilung II (Research Unit/Battalion 2) and helped in the conception and realization of blueprints of the future Ironblood cruiser designs, before he was sent to the Sakura Empire to assist in their work on awakening new ships. She was astonished that her former subordinate had been so busy at it. Some of the projects he had had his hand in made her excited to see them bear fruits.
Focusing back on the things ahead of her, she thought about her current situation. She had not been in the south china sea or the Sakura Empire for years. But so far it had been a nice journey along the equator, far away from the cold and storms of the Northsea and North Atlantic she was used to. Not that the cold had bothered her, but she always disliked how much and how quickly ice was building up on her and her rigging. Looking back on her notes she read again the names of the ships she was supposed to meet. Atago, Niizuki and Nowaki were to meet her south of Formosa. She remembered the second Takao class heavy cruiser well. She was pleasant company. She had not met the two destroyers but guessed that they were probably also some of the more restrained ones, otherwise they would probably not have been sent out to greet a foreign ship. While she passed through the turquoise and dark blue sea the cruiser detected sounds beneath the waves. Looking around she tried to find a ship in visual and radar range before she realized that her acoustic search device not only had just picked up on a ship somewhere but apparently a submarine. Listening closer to it the cruiser was able to make out the position of the noise relative to her. She estimated it to be around a mile northeast of her, distance closing by the lowly increasing volume of the engine sound. She guessed that in these waters it could only mean that either an Eagle Union or Sakura Empire submarine was closing in on her. Smiling the cruiser sped up to her 32 knot maximum speed and readied her depth charges for potential use. She was up for a cat and mouse game if it should come to it.

Reaching the point where she had heard the engine sounds, Prinz Eugen looked around to see if she could see something as well. Sailing hooks to make any potential torpedo targeting harder, she tried to find a periscope or see the figure of one of the small girls that were the submarines. Apparently the submarine was running silent now, since Prinz Eugen could not even hear it. Taking two more hooks and turns she brought the sun behind her and scanned the sea with her eyes. If a submarine was looking at her from that position, she hoped to see the reflection of the sunlight from the glass of the periscope.
She did not see any reflections, but what she saw instead was a large gray colored metal shark emerging from the waves. On its back fins and a tower typical of an Iron Blood Type-IX submarine. On the back of the machine sat a small figure in a swimsuit that waved her arms toward the cruiser. Prinz Eugen turned on her heels and sailed over to the submarine. "Of all places I did not suspect to meet one of our submarines here." Eugen greeted the submarine. "The more you know. Hello Prinz Eugen. It has been quite some time since me and my sisters have seen someone else from Ironblood. How are things at home?" The submarine asked in return. "They are alright. The navy has been restructured at least concerning us surface vessels. As to the Type IX and XXI submarines in my base, they all are doing well." She answered the submarine. "May I ask who you are?" Prinz Eugen asked in return. "U-522 Typ-IX C/41 Boot. At your service." The submarine smiled. "The last time I heard about you you had made some exploits during the war against the royal navy. Are you now here as part of the Monsun Gruppe?" Prinz Eugen asked further. "Indeed I am. A couple more of my sisters have been sent over here with some of the Typ-XIVs to be a bad surprise should anyone try anything again." U-522 laughed. "It is a bit lonely here though. Although the Sakura submarines are fun company and the odd Sardegna submarine visits us as well." U-522 explained. "We were told to be on the lookout for you if there was anything you would need." She informed Prinz Eugen. "Thank you for your kind offer but I still have plenty of fuel to run on until I reach the Sakura Empire. I will continue on my way now. It was nice meeting a friendly face here." Prinz Eugen said with a smile before slowly turning to get going on her old course again. "It was nice meeting you as well Prinz Eugen. Have a safe voyage. If you need anything just call on us over our frequency and we will be there." The submarine answered and waved the cruiser goodbye before submerging beneath the waves once more.

Prinz Eugen guessed that the last 638 seamiles she had to cover before reaching the rendezvous point would be taken in about 34 hours if she continued at her cruising speed. Taking a moment to assess her amount of fuel she had left, she guessed that since her last resupply in Jakarta. She had burnt through roughly one third of her entire fuel she had. Until Formosa she estimated to have used up half of her fuel. Enough to make it there but she would use up almost all her fuel on the journey to Kure Naval Arsenal. There was little room for her to go on higher speeds or to deviate from her course. It would be a close call but she was sure she could make it. She sighed and concentrated once more on her journey.

The calm weather ensured that the cruiser made the distance to the rendezvous point south of Formosa in less than 32 hours. She was quite satisfied with that result. All together she had managed to etch out a rough 14 hour advantage to her planned time table. 14 hours she could rest and relax. She sat down on one of the rocks protruding out of a shallows close to the coast of the southernmost point of Formosa and waited there for her escort to arrive.

While daydreaming she thought about the fact that the year was nearing its end once more and that Christmas was just a couple of days ago. The thought brought her back to the young engineer. She was never really bothered by festivities. But she knew that the young engineer had been quite gloomy the last couple of years. The last years he was not able to celebrate the festivity with his family because he had been following her and the year before that he was not cleared to leave base. And this year was the third without the ones he was close to. She knew that except for his Godfather the young engineer had a rather distant relationship to his siblings. From what she was able to learn from him and the Konteradmiral, his godfather,  it was because the young engineer had made the decision to stay in their hometown after their parents passed away and because he followed in the footsteps of his father and godfather while his siblings had decided to move inlands and away form their shared families home. She knew the young engineer regularly wrote to his siblings and every now and then they called each other to see how the others were doing. He was never really sad about it, but she knew from the last two christmases that the young engineer missed the few occasions he had to spend with his family. She also recalled her first proper Christmas she had helped to organize on the base together with the engineer.
Prinz Eugen was ripped out of her thoughts and daydreams by her radar picking up three contacts coming towards her position from the north east. As expected there were two smaller contacts and a larger one. Expecting Atago and her companions, the cruiser jumped back onto the water and made her way towards the contacts. Landing on the surface she stumbled a bit and heard the unpleasant sound of metal scraping stone. Ignoring the sound, she wanted to close the 16 sea miles distance between them quickly to get going towards Kure port.