Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 253: For Your Majesty (68)

Dragon Raja 5

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Hydra tightened its body, and immediately there was a dense scraping sound from the surface of the submarine. It felt like even the sound insulation tiles on the surface of the hull were scraped off by its scales.

No one knew whether it could violently destroy the hull, and no one knew when it had come around. It was entangled with the Nautilus like a vampire, and might open this “can” and eat it at any time.

“Does this sea have a soft seabed or a hard seabed?” Caesar asked.

The captain immediately turned his gaze to his deputy. As the captain, she didn’t need to know such trivial information; a glance would be enough to answer.

“Soft seabed,” the deputy replied immediately. “The seabed here is covered with about three to five meters of silt and microorganisms.”

“Directly crashing into the seabed?” The captain glanced at Caesar. “As far as courage is concerned, it seems your father’s trust in you is not without reason.”

“He never cared about my courage, he just thought it had to be a decision made by the Gattuso family.”

The seabed is either rocky or soft. Given the strength of a military submarine, even scraping against a rocky surface can cause a hull leak. At depths approaching 1,000 meters, a hull leak is absolutely fatal. However, a soft seabed would merely test the Nautilus’s keel toughness. The immense resistance created by the soft mud could potentially rip a Hydra from the surface, and a single Sailfish torpedo could send it to its grave.

“Cruise at 50% thrust, dive at a constant speed, and be ready to accelerate at any time!” the captain ordered.

The Nautilus, which was already very close to the seabed, sank further. All the sailors fastened themselves to their seats. The captain, Caesar, and Finger also tied themselves to the armrests with belts, ready to meet the impact.

But Jude Mai didn’t care. With a ninja’s balance ability, she could stand even if the Nautilus turned over in an instant.

The Nautilus began to accelerate, no longer caring whether Leviathan or anything else would discover it. It had enough speed to crush Hydra in the mud on the seabed.

Hydra seemed to realize that the strange metal fish it was parasitizing was beginning to become restless. Its nine heads danced wildly, slid around the Nautilus, and its heartbeat, like a war drum, became louder and louder.

“The seabed below is flat! 50 meters! 40 meters! 30 meters! 20 meters!”

“Thrust 100%! All ships, prepare for impact!” the captain shouted, taking the helm herself. Judging by her deft handling, she was not only a commanding captain, but also arguably the most experienced helmsman on the ship.

The Nautilus’s steam turbines roared with a deep roar, and as it sliced ​​through the waves, it quickly “sat” down on the seabed, its bow raised high, projecting the momentum of a charge. This attack nuclear submarine, displacing thousands of tons, was as nimble as a dolphin in the captain’s hands.

The submarine hit bottom, its hull shuddering violently, throwing those unsecured with safety harnesses overboard. The Nautilus didn’t immediately plunge into the mud. Instead, it bounced lightly, like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake. Each time it touched the seabed, it sent giant, slowly spreading ripples across the mud, each hundreds of meters in diameter. When the immense force contained in these ripples collapsed, the mud layer exploded, and centuries of accumulated sediment rose into a gray cloud, instantly transforming the clear water into a murky, muddy soup.

The moment the submarine came into contact with the mud layer, the power in the command cabin was cut off, the lights and screens went out, and the dazzling electric sparks illuminated everyone’s terrified faces.

However, the impact did not cause fatal damage to the Nautilus, and the power outage was only the submarine’s self-protection in the anti-shock state. Its powerful power core was still working, and the main propeller and jet thruster worked together to maintain a high speed at all times.

Such a huge impact force should be enough to peel Hydra off the surface of Nautilus. At this moment, it has been trapped in the mud layer, but Nautilus has not yet escaped danger. Now its enemy is helping it get rid of Hydra’s mud layer.

At a depth of nearly 1,000 meters, the Astute-class submarine was well beyond its design limits. Every square centimeter of its hull was subjected to approximately 100 kilograms of pressure. Under this staggering pressure, a solid material like wood, with its cracks, would be compressed to half its original volume. The Nautilus was able to navigate at high speed and lightness, not only because its alloy hull could withstand high pressure, but also because the pressure was evenly distributed in all directions, counteracting each other. However, once its belly touched the soft mud layer, the situation changed dramatically. The mud layer offered no support, and the immense pressure from above would push it deeper and deeper into the mud, eventually sinking to the hard seabed, a specimen encased in the mud.

That’s why the captain personally steered the Nautilus, steering it at high speed with only one-third of the vessel touching the surface of the mud. This dangerous maneuver was like skiing on the mud; if the high-raised bow sank into the mud, they would be swallowed by it.

The power supply of the command cabin was restored, and the screens flickered and lit up one after another. The captain still sat at the helmsman’s seat, staring coldly at the instruments and screens, as if the lights had never been turned off.

“Boss, your stepmother is a real character!” Finger yelled.

It was unclear whether he will live or die next, so just take this kind of words as a compliment, and the captain doesn’t care if he hears it.

“But I don’t think this is the reason why my father chose her!” Caesar was also impressed by the captain.

As Finger had said, aside from her relationship with Pompey, she was a respectable woman in her own right. Perhaps it was the Captain’s awe-inspiring majesty that had won Pompey over all the other beauties? This made more sense than his father seducing her, and Caesar felt a little more comfortable.

The underwater camera re-emerged from the Nautilus’s surface, shining a strong light towards the stern. On the screen, a cloud of mud and dust rose to a height of several hundred meters, a veritable wall reaching the sky. The Nautilus wasn’t engulfed by the dust, for it was moving faster than the spread of the dust, but the terrifying wall was bearing down on it at high speed.

If they were caught by the wall, they would be dead. The muddy water would likely contain a large amount of rock fragments, which could severely damage the main propeller. However, thanks to the captain’s precise control, they did not suffer a serious slowdown due to contact with the soft mud. The ship’s hull became light again, and the belly still glided along the mud layer, but it was slowly rising. They were out of danger.

“Caesar Gattuso!” said the captain.

Caesar came up behind the captain, ready to do her bidding. He acknowledged the captain’s alpha status on the ship and stopped thinking of her as “one of Daddy’s women.”