Characteristic

Cost

END

Cost

3

Cost

12

0

2

2

11

"Tower, 4 knots slightly aft of starboard!" The sharply New Yorker accent of Gunner's Mate Peters broke the busy humm of the engines. His cry was echoed repeatedly by other men on the starboard side and up towards the bridge.

Captain James Townes looked through his binoculars to spot the split deck conning tower of a Type IX-D U-boat. He spoke, just loudly enough to be heard over the commotion, "Hard to starboard, signal the Captain Jones to turn about and head at 229. Forward guns fire for range. Prepare depth charges."

The glint of reflected sunlight was a message that someone on the conning tower had seen the destroyer or her shadow. The descent of the tower into the water confirmed it, just as the 6½" shells struck about 80 yards behind of it.

Salt water sprayed over the bow as destroyer turned and then accelerated towards the submarine. The seas were light and Captain Townes knew he wouldn't lose his target. And even more important than the speed and depth charges of his ship were the Hedgehogs on Captain Jones's ship. An hour later, he was certain that this U-boat would never again see the sky.

Kapitan Werner was proud of his crew. There was a serious hull breach amidships, but all the men were still at their stations. Nervous, true, but concealing their fear with a mask of calm and duty. He had ordered all ballast tanks to be filled and the diving planes angled so that the U-boat plummeted towards the ocean bottom. Their cargo was precious and all hands knew that it was important that the allies not capture it. Brave men all. And only he and his first mate knew that the cargo was purified uranium powder and, just as importantly, ubermenshchenserum.

The noises hurt and were easily audible even when they held their hands over their ears. At last, the explosions ceased. Mette turned to his friend and said, "Necalli, the bangs have stopped. Let us go home now. We aren't even supposed to be here. You know the constable said that nobody should be outside of the realm, especially with that surface worlder war going on."

Instead of answering, the larger boy merely pointed up and a little to the left. A large, broken surface worlder ship was rapidly sinking. And it was coming strait for them. The two boys swam out of the way as they heard a loud crunch followed by the shrieking of metal being rended by the impact.

"Damn surface worlders," Necalli muttered. Suddenly, though, he turned around. "Come on, Mette, there's bound to be treasure in there. Nobody's around for leagues, so it'll be all ours. And the sharks and other feeders won't be here for at least an hour. If we go through it quickly, maybe we can be rich."

"Uh. I don't know, Necalli..." Mette replied. But he kept swimming towards the wreck with Mette. As they closed in on the metal wreck, they swam through a cloud of strange dust and something foul-tasting, too. Before they could reach the surface worlder ship, both of them became violently ill and had to turn around. Every muscle, bone, and skin of Mette's body felt like it was on fire. He turned back to see that the ocean currents had already begun to disperse the metallic dust cloud. But he was feeling too ill to look for treasure anymore.

At normal size, Necalli is quite meek and let's other people boss him around a lot. However if teased about his size, he will use his growth powers and take out his anger on his oppressors. Although he believes that it is surface world technology that gave him his powers, he has a deep seeded hatred of the surface world. Often, he might ram himself into surface vessels just for fun.

Necalli is a swashbuckling kind of Atlantean, more confident than his best friend, Mette, but still something of an outsider in Atlantean circles.  He wears a bandana and a deep red jacket with gold, coral and aquamarine trim.