The Short Story Thread

[Texas Red]

Hey y'all!

Here you can write short stories on any topic! You can make a series of short stories as well.

Here is the *Current* List of Rules

1. No inappropriate short stories.
2. No plagiarism of the title of someone's short story. For example, if someone names their story, Hearts of Iron, you cannot name your story that same name.
3. Stories should be at least 2 sentences long and 7 paragraphs long at max.
4. You can comment on other people's stories, if you are gonna criticize someone's story, just use constructive criticism, do not use harsh words.

Formatting:

1. Make sure to write a title
2. After the title, put By: (insert username) So, it would look like By: the beast
3. You can make it any font you want, any color, and any size.
4. Do NOT use the emoticons in your story, you can put it at the end of your story.
5. The title and authors name do NOT count as paragraphs.
6. End your story with *****End of (insert name of story)******

I will write my short story in the next post.


Happy Hunting y'all!

[Texas Red]

The Chronicles of the USS Tautog: Patrol 1, Part 1
By: the beast

December 26, 1941
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

It has been 19 days since the attack on Pearl Harbor. My submarine, the USS Tautog, SS-199, is ready for her first wartime patrol. I am Lieutenant Commander Joseph Harris Willingham jr. I saw hell during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many men perished on that fateful day. My orders are to perform reconnaissance on the Marshall Islands. The brass fears that a second attack force is mounting up over there.
Right now, it is 13.30 hours and we are is transiting the entrance channel to Pearl Harbor. I am on the bridge with the watch crew. Many sailors on the bridge still look dazed and confused even after Pearl Harbor, as if it is still playing in their minds, like a movie being played repeatedly.
The USS Tautog has been my trusty boat since July 3, 1940. If this boat does go down, I will go down with her. My wife, Amy, will have to leave me 600 feet under.
The situation in the Pacific is disastrous. Wake Island fell on the 23rd of December, the Philippines are dangerously close to falling to the Japanese. We have been caught with our pants down.

January 6, 1942

Manilla was captured by the Japanese on January 2, 1942. The mixed US/local defense began a retreat on January 4, 1942, to the Bataan Peninsula. All news aside, we have reached the designated reconnaissance area, Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. We are to perform reconnaissance here until we are given new orders.

February 4, 1942

We returned to Pearl Harbor after reporting that there were no enemy ships encountered at neither Kwajalein, Bat, Rongelap, Wotho, or Bikini atolls. We’re ordered to Mare Island Navy Yard for a refit. This would give my crew and me some leave for a while.

*****End of The Chronicles of the USS Tautog: Patrol 1, Part 1*******

[Moonlight]

The sinking of the USS Hotdog.
By: the NDD_Fubuki

January 6th 1942
West of Midway Island.

Almost a month has passed since we, the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy gave those arrogant damn yankees a good kicking on the island of Pearl Harbour. My ship, a Fubuki class destroyer have the USS Hotdog firmly in our sights, leaking a trail of oil and probably red sauce as well, this American decadent captain will never see the sunrise or sunset again. You can practically hear the howls of anguish as the sounds of the submarine breaking up is relayed over the hydrophone speaker, hah, thats what you get for interfering in Hideki Tojo's plans you smart arse bleedin yankees.

Mighty Imperial Japanese Navy 2-0 American hotdog lovers.

Tenno Heika Banzai, “Long live the Emperor “

[Eichhörnchen]

I feel as exposed as a worm on a fishing pole, stretched full length on this padded bed in the nose of my bomber, completely surrounded by the plastic glasshouse and amid a continuous near-deafening noise from the engines. The cold grey surface of the Channel rushes past below as we drop down to evade the coastal radar-arrays... it looks so very close that at this height I always wonder how we could possibly still be here... just above the wavetops! One slip by our pilot and we will suddenly all be dashed into a maelstrom of freezing, suffocating agony

Ahead, through the now grimy, noisy and violently vibrating perspex, I can begin to make out the first vague, horizontal shadows and colours of the white cliffs... only dimly visible through the sea murk of our low altitude. But now and again a small splinter of colour is thrown out by the burning morning sun, as it catches sections of the limestone bluffs. And above, yes, the burning vault of blue... the deepest blue I ever saw.

Are we going up soon? It must be soon. Below us is the freezing water... ahead (now clearly there) the white battlements of hard chalk... if he doesn't pull up soon!! Before I can wonder any further whether I am going to Heaven or to Hell we are up and over the top! Now we must keep climbing. And now there's radio chatter... is it our pilot or is it the Tommies? Are they after us already? English or German? I can't hear a word above the din of these engines, now screaming into a rising fugue as they drag us higher and higher above the green pastures.

Now that we're past the radar we have to get to our bombing level. And as we rise the oh-so green land becomes less vivid... turning darker, even to more dusky violet hues, and the first wisps of fair-weather cloud begin to puff up and whip past. Higher still and the radio chatter begins again... only this time different... more excited, yet not frantic. There are steady voices there, too... commanding and directing. That's not my mother tongue, I feel sure of it! is it Polish? English? The voices become harsher and more insistent. Are they are coming for us now?

I can see tiny shards of light below... glinting in the sun... what are they? Then my attention is moved: to our right and below, a 'schwarm' of Junkers 88s overtakes us... of course I cannot hear them as they bank away, going who knows where. Like sharks on the prowl they guard us, as do the Messerschmitts high above, although I cannot see them. But those bright spots below return, like tiny fishes with their pale bellies suddenly bright in the sunlight as they roll and turn... are they fighters?

In this suffocatingly hot bubble of mine, made almost unbearable by my coveralls and life jacket, I experience a brief shock of ice-cold panic when I see more 'fishes' diving down past us very close, in long chains, again to the right. They streak down and vanish... dozens of them... like in a waterfall. They shine in the baking sun as they race past, and I know that they are setting about their killing. They are Spitfires... they are going after the Junkers. The Hurricanes will come for us next... they always come after the Spitfires!

A moment later someone is smashing in my glasshouse with a hammer... the row of the engines becomes deafening and I feel the heat of fire billowing up from beneath me. Someone shakes me to get me moving. We have to get out! I am shaken ever more violently..."Wake up! Wake up!" I roll over onto my back. "Wake up! Wake up!..... I told you it's too hot in here! You're having another nightmare, you daft bugger" says Moira... "Have you been playing those bloody video games again?"

END OF "High Summer Nightmare"

[Jeff-Groves]

As I am on the final approach to designated target I leave this message to all the Human race.
We have been at War for so long none of remember the start or why.
We saw technology advance so fast and once the shields went on line?
It almost became impossible for a weapon of mass destruction to get through.
So why I'm I here? On a flight that will change the face of this World War of 100 years?

Let me explain the shield technology in use as it is.
The electronic shield, operating as a sort of magnetic field, detects and then deflects, anything coming in at a high speed.
We tried slow speed shells and it still stopped them. Plastic, ceramic, many other materials?
Same results. Not even the biologic weapons get through.

Until!

Unit Jimbuna was on a simple flight to check and record stats.
It suffered a malfunction and the Pilot had to eject right next to the shield wall.
The craft struck the wall and was destroyed. The Pilot floated THROUGH the wall and was captured.

My mission? I will eject just before the wall allowing my craft to be destroyed.
I am equiped with a glider type outfit that will allow me to travel many miles given velocity at ejection and altitude.

I am to be the delivery source of a virus so deadly that the forces behind the wall will be defeated.
I am a human bomb as I will detonate over the nearest large City.
The winds will do the rest.

[Texas Red]

At 1320 hours, the 3rd watchman, Matrose Ernst Hein, spots a large smoke funnel bearing 230°. I look and spot the same thing. I couldn’t believe it at the time, we were about to get our first chance to prove ourselves! So, prepare, say a prayer!

“ALARM!” I scream down the hatch. The bell rings as every man drops what they are doing and heads to their battle-stations. Helmut heads to the command room since he is the Executive Officer (XO) it is his duty to conduct weapons attacks and maintaining the boat weapon systems.

Walther calculates the course of the ship from the observation periscope in the command room while I’m in the conning tower, looking through the attack periscope. He finally decides on the course of the ship and tells me we are running on a perpendicular course to the ship.

I increased the speed to 14 knots. My grin gets bigger and bigger as I see the ship get bigger and bigger on my scope, meaning that she is getting closer. I could see two weapons on the ship. A large gun at the bow, and another large gun at the aft of the ship. This excludes her from me firing a warning shot. I identified her as a Medium Tanker weighing in at approximately 7,500 tons. Dieter works out the solution to the torpedo attack while I wait to be able to fire the torpedoes. We have 3 TI torpedoes in tubes 1,3, and 4 and one TII torpedo in tube 2. Due to it being such a nice day, I decided to use the TII. It was already preheated to reduce the risk of being a dud. Since this is an electric torpedo, she doesn’t have a pistol setting. I decided for her to run at only 1 meter below the waterline. I hoped that the watch crew on the Medium tanker doesn’t spot the torpedo itself as it cruises along in the glass-like waters.

The crew was silent, no one spoke a word. A pool of sweat formed around me as it quickly rose to above 32.2 °C. We have no air conditioning unit in the submarine, so it can get dangerously hot sometimes. I yelled down to the chief engineer and asked, “What is our battery percentage, chief?” he replied, “86%, sir!” I then asked, “What is our Co2 percentage, chief?” he responded after a while, “Sir, we are at 2%”. Since 10% of Co2 is good enough to kill, we were fine.

Helmut yelled from the command room, “Sir, all calculations have been put in, we are ready to fire!”. I called out, “Flood tube 2, set it to run 1 meter below the waterline!”. A few seconds passed before Dieter informed me that we were ready to fire. “Torpedo, LOS!”, I yelled as loud as I could. I heard the torpedo go from the tube and then Dieter informed me, “Sir, the torpedo is in the water!”. “Good now, reload tube 2 with another TII. Flood tube I and standby to fire.”

I start my stopwatch, the torpedo goes around 30 knots and the ship is 950 meters from us, it should take the torpedo 31 seconds to hit her.

[Jeff-Groves]

That don't qualify for this thread.

[mapuc]

These fragment is terrible
Logbook
HMS HMS Hambledon
23rd Oct. 1943 0630 zulu.
153 NM from goal.

Day of watch
My watch started at 0500 zulu
We are on route to Southampton, we are protecting convoy xx, we have been their protection since Halifax.
This famous English fog have hit us.
It's really really tense, I can't see my own hands in front of me.
I'm holdning my binoculars in my right hand..It will be of no use in this fog, only thing I see is nothing but a white wall.

Only thing which is in good use here is my ears.
While standing here outside the bridge and feel this cold wind hitting my face
!?? What was that, did I hear a different engine sound ?
I have somehow learned how our engines sounds like and the Merchant on our left sounds like. But this was different and came from 2 o'clock.
I toke up my binoculars to my eyes..when I toke it away again...unable to see anything in this dense fog.

Suddenly I hear machine guns fire from this direction-2 o'clock I open the ships phone and yell ALARM and at the same time I take cover behind one our metal things(don't know what they are called)

Something warm and sharp hit me on my right chin.
The pain was intense for a second then it was gone.
Have I been hit by a bullet or a fragment ? I moved my right hand slowly up to my right side of my face, to feel if there is anything like blood, there is nothing.

Must have been a piece a garbage which have may have hit me.
Again I felt this pain.....and again nothing...
The ship shake for a while...It wasn't the enemy who had hit us, it was our main gun who had fired in this direction.

Funny having a shootout with the enemy in such a dense fog, you can't see them, only hear them and vice versa

Someone is screaming of pain, one of the crew must have been hit by enemy fire.

Again this warm and sharp feeling hit me on my right chin and this crew member must be in lot of pain because again I hear him, loudly this time.

Wait a minute this doesn't sound like a person in pain, in fact it sound like my cat.
It was my brain who slowly started to wake up and then I felt this sharp pain on my right chin again.
I was now enough awake to understand that this warm and sharp things that hit me now and then was one of my cats claws.

I have altered the original dream so I could post a short story in this thread

Markus