The Supertanker of Azur Lane

Prologue

-'Yes sir', replies the navigator and switches the computer to manual. He then tries to deprogram the engines by typring a sepcific command on the touchscreen in front of him. There's no response. The engines are still functioning and maintaing their proper speed. The leak must have cut the wires to the engines somehow, this preventing the command from reaching the specific area of the ship. If that's the case, then they are in serious trouble. Not only they cannot stop the vessel, they can't get into that room either. Once sealed, the computer cannot override that command unti the threat levels have been restored to their original levels. It might sound ridiculous, but this feature was added to save human lives in case of such accidents. Well, they didn't consider adding a manual feature for something like that, everything is automated. Not only that, they've got another problem to deal with now.

-'Response negative captain', says the navigator after trying three times. 'Speed increasing to 30 knots'.

-'Right, change course to three, three, zero. We better avoid maritime traffic if we want to avoid a collision'.

-'Speed still increasing', interrupts the navigator. '40 knots, 50 knots, 60'.

-'We're already reached the red light', says the captain again. 'The engines won't stand it'.

Unfortunately, the captain's words couldn't be more correct. As soon as he has finished his sentence, a large explosion echoes through the bridge and black smoke begins to rise from the port side of the ship. It appears that the leak has spilled over to bunker tank number 17, right in front of the bridge. That makes no sense. Normally, all bunker tanks are tightly sealed to prevent such accidents. Yet, it appears that the lithium somehow managed to spill to one of the bunkers with ease. Maybe the heat from the oil caused the lithium to burst. Since the engine room is right below the accomodation structure, and right behind the bunker tanks, it wouldn't be surprising if the spill was caused by some faulty wires and a scratch on the batteries. It could have opened a hole somewhere and could have caused it to spill quickly before the censors could detect something. 

Well, they can't do much about it now. All they can do is put out the fire by themselves with the suppression systems and the helicopter on the back of the deck. As long as no oil or lithium has spilled on the sea water, they can use it to put out the fire in just a few hours, that is as long as things don't get any more complicated than they already are.

Just then, the captain picks up his walkie talkie radio and gets up from his seat.

-'XO, you get to the lower part of the deck and assess the damage as soon as the fire is out', he says to the second mate. 'I'll take the helicopter and pick up sea water to reduce the blaze. Navigator, you stay here and get the drones ready for launch'.

-'Aye aye sir', they both reply and are about to get up from their seats.

Then, all of a sudden, a giant orange light begins to illuminate in front of the ship. This however, is no regular light. In fact, it's like no light they've seen before. This light in particular seems way too tiny and way too bright and powerful at the same time. What's more incredible, is that they can see a tiny object inside the light. It appears to be some sort of metallic ball about 4.2 centimeters big. The captain, the XO, the navigator, neither of them knows how to react to this. This object is beyond anything they've imagined so far. Could this be a UFO? No, that's ridiculous. There's no such thing as UFOs, right?

Before any of them can say anything, the metallic ball performs a quick maneuver around the ship and a white beam is ejected from the ball, blinding the crew and consuming the entire ship along with them before disappearing completely. It has just vanished into thin air as if it was never there. If there's one good thing about this light, is that it has just put out the fire. The sea has calmed down and the smoke has cleared from the area. Even the small amount of lithium and natural gas that were spilled in the sea have disappeared. Whatever the phenomenon behind this metallic ball was, it was probably a good sign.

There's one problem though. The supertanker and its crew have completely disappeared as well. There's no sign of them. It's as if they were never there in the first place. That's strange. How is that possible. A few minutes ago, there was definitely a ship right there in that area. How do you lose a supertanker with three people in just a few seconds? That's just not possible.

Little does anybody know, this light was a bridge. A bridge which connects this universe with another one. A universe where no human has ever managed to go before. A universe where war never ends, and this supertanker was destined to cross that bridge.

(And that's all for today's chapter. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Also, be sure to check out and subscribe to my Youtube and Dailymotion channels. Until then, see you next time. Remember, your opinion is always important).